52. Obstacle Course Completion
By the time the participants reached what looked like the third and final section of the obstacle course, Isaac had accepted that his prediction was not going to be correct. Aster and Seaton had paused their squabbling long enough to get through the geysers, but at that point they were so far behind that even Aster’s speed wouldn’t be enough to get her to the front of the pack again. Especially not after one of the other fey had turned a large patch of the earth into sinking mud that effectively halved the speed of the participants. Especially especially not after one of the Abyss creatures apparently decided “fuck it” and started circling around the other competitors instead of bothering to move forward, forming a moving eldritch blockade purely to make the other participants’ lives more miserable.
The final obstacle was by far the weirdest one, and for a second Isaac didn’t even notice it. Covering the rest of the field up to the finish line were a series of magical panels hovering and spinning in the air, but they were largely invisible. Only a few faint shimmers when they caught the light at the right angle gave any indication that something was there at all.
In fact, the main clue that anyone had gotten about the floating invisible discs’ existence was when the air elemental who’d been leading the pack had slammed straight into one and been knocked out cold.
(A couple of wisps and sprites had then proceeded to spit on the passed out elemental; clearly they hadn’t forgotten about the earlier windstorm)
The participants now crowded around the final portion of the field, murmuring to themselves. Isaac frowned, getting the feeling that this was going to take a while, especially as an attempted strike from one of the demons bounced straight off the weird panels.
“Who even came up with this?” Isaac asked out loud. Fable turned to face him, grinning.
“Lilith and I split the challenges.” Their smile looked even more self satisfied than usual. “This last one was my idea, by the way.”
“Figures,” Isaac said as another participant got hit in the face. Because the panels were mostly invisible, it looked like people were just collapsing for no reason or getting hit by air, which he would admit was pretty funny looking and exactly the kind of shit that Fable would do. “Not a lot of obstacles,” he commented absently.
Fable shrugged and waved vaguely at the remaining traces of mud on the field. “I meeeean.”
“So you knew people would fight one another.”
“Well duh. Like 90% of us don’t like each other. Do the math.”
Isaac rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the race. At that point, the participants had realized that the sky was no safer than the ground. Someone had created a bunch of smoke, likely in an attempt to reveal the positions of the magic walls, but it hadn’t done anything. The main solution right now seemed to be to hold something out in front of you while running so that the object would hit the wall first, sparing you the impact.
It wasn’t a perfect strategy; Isaac observed as Seaton, who’d been doing the strategy with his spear, got hit from the side. The merfolk didn’t fall unconscious, though, and ended up shifting his spear into a circle of water around him, which was probably more effective for this method, but it also still didn’t cover his head and feet, so more collisions were likely.
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Isaac frowned. “90% of you don’t like each other, and you still thought this was a good idea.”
“Hey, I never said it was a good idea, but it sure is an entertaining one.”
Isaac’s attention was drawn towards Sharil, whose movements were more erratic than before. Her claw swings, usually so controlled and precise, looked wild and thoughtless. He frowned and searched the rest of the field. He blinked a few times when he saw that Remus had all but stopped running and was just standing there, staring vaguely ahead in a manner all too similar to when Isaac had seen him on the train. Now that he thought about it, the man’s stamina stat had been a 6, hadn’t it? Maybe he was tired?
An angry yell distracted his attention, and he glanced up at the screen just in time to see Aster barely twist out of the way of what he presumed was one of the invisible walls, not that he could really see it. The fey’s face was starting to grow red in frustration. She didn’t seem to have gotten hit yet, though, which was good. Maybe a top three finish was still in the cards?
Of course, because things never went the way he wanted, a shrill ringing noise made him wince mere seconds after he had the thought. Across the field, on the other side of the invisible walls, eldritch horror worm slidey snakey thingy 2, 🗌🗌, had crossed the finish line.
—
The rest of the race passed by in a blur. Aster finished within the top 10, as did Seaton, whose more balanced stat line was proving more advantageous than Isaac would’ve thought. Sharil made it into the top 20, Olzu landed in the middle of the pack, and Remus was in the bottom half of competitors. Igor, as expected, came in last from the ones that actually crossed the finish line, slowly running one clanking footstep at a time.
Isaac tapped the tablet screen impatiently as he waited for the man to cross the line. After he did so, both of the golden start and end points vanished from view, and the large projector screen portals rippled and warped, shifting until they now displayed the results of the first race.
Isaac stood up, his chair screeching behind him, before he paused and stared down the tall pillar of earth supporting the commentator booth. It looked even higher up when he was staring directly down like this. Fable raised an eyebrow.
“Leaving already? I didn’t think you’d be a sore loser. Well I did, but not to this extent.”
Isaac rolled his eyes. “I’m gonna check on the healing area,” he muttered. Quite a few people had gotten wounded, some appearing more severe than others. Besides, as he glanced over at the distant forms of the participants, already separating into their original groups, he couldn’t shake a growing sense of antsiness. Maybe it was the continued close proximity to Fable, but he felt like he’d go crazy if he didn’t get out of the booth. The tablet felt warm in his hands, lingering golden light still half illuminating its screen.
“I’ll be back for the other events, whenever those are.” He pointed at the sheer drop below. “Now how the fuck am I supposed to get down?”
“Knock on the ground four times.”
Isaac hesitated, but finally crouched down and knocked against the earth as instructed. He paused and waited. Nothing happened.
“Oh did I say knock? Whoops I meant stomp.”
Glaring at the other Traveler, Isaac stomped his foot four times, probably more aggressively than necessary. For a second there was no change and he was seriously considering punching Fable and seeing how good at fighting they really were, but before he could turn around, the ground beneath him started to shake.
Isaac let out a decidedly undignified yelp and barely had time to grab the edge of the table as the entire pillar dropped down, rapidly shrinking back into the earth until the booth hit the ground again with a thud, like some kind of fucked up elevator.
Pushing himself up so that he was standing straight again, Isaac shot a glare back at Fable, who had a shit eating grin on their face, and stalked away towards the healing area.