It was only a few minutes after the game wide alert when Girgrir ushered me into one of the two doors I had noticed earlier. On the other side of the door was a room bigger than the one I had been spawned into. It had three straw dummies on the side of the room away from the door, on the side closest to the door was an extensive weapons rack. The rack housed knives, swords, spears, polearms, axes, clubs, hammers, brass knuckles, and a dozen other things I didn't recognize.
“We have three hours, I'm going to get some training in that head,” Girgrir said as he grabbed two spears of the rack and tossed one to me.
We spent the next hour practicing simple spear thrusts, blocks and parries. Over the hour I had gained the skill spear proficiency and 2 levels in the skill, but more importantly I had a skill called scorpion strike. Girgrir had also taught me that I could use the identify skill on my status page for more information on skills.
Personal alert: you have gained the skill spear proficiency. +2 levels to spear proficiency, +2 free stat points.
Personal alert: you have gained the skill scorpion strike. scorpion strike is a class skill. Class skills are skills specific to your class.
I used identify on my new class skill, And got a some what expected result.
Skill: scorpion strike. Thrust your spear forward in the direction it's facing in a deceptively fast strike.
As soon as Girgrir learned about it, he wanted to start training it. At first he had me trigger the ability a few times, which was as easy as thinking about using the ability and it would trigger. When I used it, it would cause me to thrust my spear in whatever direction it was pointing. I used it with my spear pointing forward, out to the side and even straight up. All of the tests resulted in me losing balance as the weight of the spear tried to pull me along with it when the skill stopped. Girgrir had me train using that a few more times. Over the next hour we “fought” about 12 times and I gained two levels in scorpion strike and three levels in spear proficiency.
When there was about an hour left until the challenge, I had to sit down because it felt like my chest was going to explode. I told Girgrir about the progress I had made in my skills, and he let me have a break until the challenge started, he wanted to be in the best shape for the challenge. When I tried to use identify on my other skills i got some an interesting result
Skill: blood bound companion. Provides a weak mental link with your blood bound companion, and allows you to temporarily merge your blood bound companion’s soul with yours, both souls will be considered one, for good or evil.
Skill: identify. Allows you to gleam more knowledge than that which is visible on the surface.
I tried to activate the merge souls part of my blood bound companion skill. I walked over to where she was lounging, she had watched my training session and the whole time i could feel her percent even if i wasn't looking at her, it was strangely comforting. I reached down and started to pet in between her dorsal plates. When I activated the skill I felt a tug on the mental link I had with titania, in a flash I witnessed titania melt into my skin and a weight settled onto my mind.
“You should next while meditating with your pet merged with your soul.” Girgrir walked over to the side of the room and sat down. “ you have the next 45 minutes until the challenge to do what you want”
I sat down in the corner of the training room and tried to feel out titania’s percent in my mind. I spent a few minutes trying to visualize a room in my head where me in titania could see each other in this merged soul state. When i opened my eyes I was in a room a little smaller than the first room I had woken up in. The room was pure white but it was still possible to see. Titania was in one of the corners and when she saw me, she came running over and nuzzled into my leg, it was still a bit jarring to see a big lizard act like a puppy. We played fetch with a small ball I made appear out of thin air. It had taken me a few minutes but I figured out how to make stuff appear and how to alter the size and shape of the room.
Game wide alert: the first mandatory challenge called “the preliminaries” is starting now, You will be split into 16 groups of eight. You will have the opportunity to make an alliance and a party with the people in your group. The challenge will be split into two different types of rooms.
Puzzle rooms: puzzle rooms will provide the same amount of leaderboard points to everyone in the room when it completed
Combat rooms: combat rooms will provide leaderboard points variable to the amount you contribute to clearing the room of hostiles.
The leaderboards will be made public at the end of the first challenge.
Teleportation will commence in 5 seconds.
I felt a rush of movement and then I was back in my physical body, I had been removed from the room in my mind I had made for titania. I could still feel titania’s comforting presence in my mind room. I looked at the room around me, it looked to be around 40 feet on each side, besides the ceiling which was around 8 feet high.
“Stupid ceiling, I'll kill you.” I jumped at the deep Welsh accent.
I twisted around to look at where the voice came from, and there were 7 other people standing behind me. In the middle was a massive woman that looked like she had hit her head when everyone was teleported into the challenge. The nearest person to me was a short, incredible pale woman with fiery hair, and when I say fiery, I don't mean bright red, I mean that the top of her hair was made of small strands of fire.
“Are you all right?” I asked, my concern damping my excitement at seeing other people.
“Yeah, this is just a spell I got when I woke up in this place.” the woman responded with an airy voice, it sounded like she was constantly wheezing. “My name is Cathy”
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“You already have a spell? That's sick. What does it do, if you don't mind me asking?” My former excitement at seeing other people was blown past by this new found eagerness to learn about the spells and abilities of this new world.
“Calm down kids, we need to get our feet under us then we can do some learning.” a new voice came from behind Cathy, and out walked someone I had thought I would see again.
“Max?” I was floored when I saw the man that walked from behind Cathy. “You look so healthy, what happened, why are you here?”
“ You were gone for three months. I tried to go out and get a job to pay for my treatments, but I was too sick to keep a job. And because you disappeared I ran out of money. How are you here and why did you abandon me? ” Max said to me as he walked closer, his voice rising with anger and disappointment.
“I'm sorry I couldn't help you, I got hit by a car and put into a coma, my insurance wouldn't pay for the medical bills so I had to sign a contract to get all my debts paid off and so I wouldn't go broke, and now I'm here.” I tried to convince him that I had not abandoned him and that I didn't have a choice.
“That doesn't matter. right now we need to figure out what is going on with this challenge” Max turned away from me to address the group around us, they had spread out a little while me and Max were talking.
“This is a puzzle room, it looks like constellations, but they aren't in the right order. Look there.. And there. Those two have a different number of stars, I think we just have to line them up in order." Cathy pointed at two different bundles of glowing dots and lines, one with five glowing dots, and the other with seven dots.
Cathy and a bald man walked over to the constellations and started to slide the tiles the constellations were embedded into. I tried to figure out what the pattern was with the other constellations, some had as little as five dots, and one had ten dots. There were eight of the constellations, with two being on each wall. While I was trying to figure out the pattern, I was also talking with the other people in the room with me. In the room were me and Max, along with six people I didn't know, Cathy, Peigi, Godwin, Skelton, Bobivin, and jerry. Cathy was the fiery haired woman, she had picked offence as her class. Peigi was a short and slender woman that was more bones than muscles, she had two healing spells, a no cooldown instant heal and a more intensive heal over time spell. Godwin was a middle of the road guy, not tall, not short, not overweight, not skinny, brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin, and he had one spell that cost all of his MP. Skelton was the massive woman that had bumped her head right after they had been teleported into the room. I found out that Skelton wasn't her actual name, but she wouldn't tell me what her real name was. She had two skills and one of them seemed sort of overpowered, it was called “plot armor”. Skelton found a way to share part of her status screen with me and I used identify on her skills.
Skill: plot armor (legendary). anyone can be a hero, but only the greatest have plot armor. The effects of this skill cannot be predicted or determined by any means including divination.
“If this was a book, you’d definitely be the main character. Having plot armor right off the bat is ridiculous." I was amazed at the skill and I wanted to learn all I could about it.
“I was granted that skill when my class got changed to hero” she stated like that fact like it was normal.
“You're a HERO. how? That sounds super good. What does it give you? Do you mind just sharing your entire status screen with me?” I was probably asking too many questions, but after a few seconds Skelton flipped a blue box in my direction.
Status. Name: Skelton. class: hero. HP: 300, MP: 100. Free stat points: 6
Strength:15. dexterity:15.intelligence: 15. willpower:15.
Abilities: plot armor(legendary). Identify (lvl:3). Soul shatter(lvl:1).
I knew the identified description of the two other skills, but not the last one.
Skill: Soul shatter. Channel your spirit into an attack to deal damage to the soul instead of dealing physical damage.
“Hey guys, check this out. I think the constellations are based on our names. There are eight constellations and eight of us. Maybe if we solve the constellation with the same number of stars as letters in our names, it will work.” Bobivin shouted from the corner as he ran to a constellation with seven stars
I went to a constellation with eight stars and Skelton went to one with seven stars. The constellation consisted of a grid on twenty four sliding tiles, in a five by five pattern with tile missing in the top right corner. I realized that it was missing so the other tiles could slide around. There were eight glowing dots with lines crossing over the tiles, some lines ended and started without any reason so I figured I would need to slide the tiles around until all the lines were connected to a glowing dot. After a few minutes of sliding tiles around, the final tile clicked into place and with a snap all the stars started to glow with a new found brightness.
“I'm done, does anyone need any help?” I walked from the secretion of the wall and started to ask everyone if they needed help.
“I could use some help, this is too complex.” Bobivin ushered me over to his section of the wall.
Me and him started to slide his tiles around, but I saw that he had to have had at least twice the number of lines that I had, despite him only having seven dots. It took us almost 20 minutes to solve his section. Multiple people had finished while I was helping Bobivin and were crowding around us. When the last tile slid into place his whole constellation glowed red and a small hole opened up on the ceiling above him, the hole was only about 3 inches wide. Bobivin stepped right under the hole to get a view of what was in the hole, but right as a metal spike shot out of the hole, Cathy dove to tackle Bobivin out of the way.
She was too slow, she pushed Bobivin out of the way, but he was heavier than she expected, and her momentum stopped dead right as the spike drove down through the top of head and out through the bottom of her jaw.
The spike was a gleaming silver that seemed to bend the light of the room, the small amount of blood that leaked from around the spike evaporated from the heat of her fiery hair. Her hair seemed to glow brighter as it started to strobe. The room heated up as her hair grew in size and intensity before detonating and shattering the metal spike that impaled her. The force of the detonation sent everyone tumbling as shards of superheated silver were sent flying through the air. The last thing I remember before I passed out again, was one of the shards of the shattered spike spearing through my right lung and out through my spine.