Facing each other tensely, we wait for the Pathwalker – the herbalist this time – to start it. With a loud click of her jaws, she does just that.
Bracing ourselves for our opponent to immediately throw his daggers – no doubt laced with some sort of poison, we keep our eyes fixed on him. If my own stealth Skills and that of Catch has taught me anything, it’s that paying focussed attention to the target prevents them from working properly – or at all, normally.
Unfortunately, it seems that the Warrior knows it too, and has a trick up his sleeve. Or, rather, on his belt. Pulling a small canister from his belt, he flicks open the top and throws the contents our way. We dart to the side, splitting up to allow whatever it was to pass harmlessly in between us.
The only problem is that it turns out it wasn’t anything meant to attack us, not directly, anyway.
Dust fills the air, then expands until it creates a dense fog which completely blocks sight. I’m reminded of my soul-space except for the fact that this mist is tinted blue and makes me cough and my eyes water.
Pulling out a shirt from my Inventory, I hurriedly tie it around my nose and mouth. While I do that, I keep moving – we’ve lost sight of the Warrior, so he’s no doubt gone into stealth. My ears strain to hear the sound of claws on the ground; my stinging and watering eyes search for signs of air movement rippling the dust.
If only I had control of wind…I could blast this whole thing away in a moment. Then two thoughts strike me simultaneously.
Catch, get out of the fog, I tell my Bound quickly, still turning and stepping carefully to reduce the chances of being caught off guard. At the same time, I start cycling healing energy through me, working on my eyes in particular to stop them impeding my vision.
A slight whistle in the air is my only warning before a dagger slams into me. Fortunately, with the slight warning, I was able to shift a little, enough that it stabs into my armour rather than my neck.
The dagger is sharp, and even leaves a slight mark in the nere hide that makes up the body of my armour. Fortunately, it doesn’t penetrate.
As I shift away, I reach down to grab the dagger, tucking it into my Inventory – no point leaving weapons around for the Warrior to pick back up.
Another whistle comes and I twist sideways, avoiding it. I’m tempted to send fire back in the direction it came from, but I’m hesitant to use it when surrounded by unknown alchemical reagents. Who knows what might happen?
I’m out, Catch tells me, just as another dagger flies at me from a different angle than the two previous. He’s moving around. I keep twisting and turning, moving this way and that as unpredictably as I can to make myself a more difficult target.
Use air-blade on the smoke. Try to make it as powerful as you can.
I…I’ve never tried that before, he tells me hesitantly even as I have to avoid another dagger. A second comes unexpectedly quickly on the heels of the first and I don’t manage to avoid this one. It slices the meat of my bicep and I curse.
You’ve used air-blade before, I tell him, my teeth gritted against the fire I already feel emanating from the wound. It’s poisoned – that I know. But I can’t have a conversation with Catch and dodge daggers and heal my wound. Just focus on putting as much mana into the blade as possible. I know you can do it.
With that, I cut off the conversation and throw my magic at the wound in my bicep. My feet never stop moving, but my concentration is more on pushing the poison out of the wound than avoiding the daggers. I’m tempted to just leave the poison within me, but with how quickly it’s already spreading, I fear that that would be a potentially-fatal mistake.
Two more slam into me, but neither actually cut me – I manage to move well enough to have them strike the armour I’m wearing instead of my flesh. I breathe a silent ‘hah’ as I manage to push the last of the poison out. It trickles down my skin, but is clear of my wound now.
And then a gust of wind comes and the dust cloud blows away from me.
It’s not gone completely, but the area around me is almost fully clear. I’m willing to risk fire now, and send a wave of it spreading out from me in all directions.
The fire crackles as it hits the dust particles still hanging around. As it touches the greater body of dust, there’s a sudden quiet ‘whoomph’ as the whole of it abruptly ignites. I stare at it, wide-eyed for a moment. It was only a quick ignition, and over within a second. Still, I’m very glad I didn’t try to use fire while standing in the middle of the cloud.
A pained grunt brings my attention back to where it belongs – in the fight. I suddenly realise that I know where the Warrior is. It’s not that he’s dropped stealth – I can’t actually see him. Instead, it’s like the pulse of fire which went out from me briefly mapped the area and told me where the only living creature in its radius is standing. Or was, anyway – I doubt he’s still there.
With Catch still clear, I pulse my fire again, and identify where the Warrior is. As soon as I know, I send an image through to Catch. The samuran took the opportunity of the dust cloud to drop into Stealth himself, and apparently using the air-blade hasn’t broken it. Now, he starts sneaking up on the Warrior.
I keep sending out pulses of fire, minimising the mana I put into it by reducing the actual damage it’s doing. After all, I’m the distraction and information gatherer right now. I also make sure that it’s not harming Catch – no friendly fire here if I can avoid it.
In the meantime, I pretend that I don’t know where the Warrior is, continuing my careful stepping and turning, my spear held at the ready. In reality, of course, I know exactly where he’s prowling, and that helps me to be ready to avoid the daggers coming in my direction.
It’s a cat, cat, and mouse game, only the Warrior is confused about which one of us is the mouse. Apparently he either doesn’t have more of that dust, doesn’t feel the need to use it, or doesn’t want to use it after seeing what my fire did to it.
The battle ends with more of a whimper than a bang. I stop moving and look over to where I know that Catch has just put one of the Warrior’s own daggers to his neck and the other to his side. He had placed his own shield and cudgel down surreptitiously and then grabbed two of the fallen daggers for his own use.
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Our onlookers look a little confused for a moment until both of them flicker back into sight, cancelling their Stealth. The Warrior has his chin tilted upwards in their gesture of submission and his claws are empty.
“Victor: Markus,” the herbalist announces neutrally and then starts stepping towards us. The Warrior nods at me and then at Catch who has lowered the daggers.
“Good fight,” he said, his grunts surprisingly reverberant considering his lithe and relatively small form. He’s still bigger than Catch, but not by much which did make Catch’s tactics at the end easier.
“Thanks, you too,” I say honestly. It was a different fight from the others I’ve experienced – I have a feeling that this one is worth keeping an eye on. I hand him back the dagger I popped in my Inventory. “Did you make the poison?”
His spikes flicker in negation.
“No. It is from a plant in the forest. The grunt-click-flash-of-yellow.” Clearly even Animal Empathy can’t translate something I have no idea about. Hopefully River…. Perhaps Catch will know about it. I eye him and he sends me negation down the Bond. Pity. Well, something to pursue at a later time, perhaps – I’m intrigued by how fast-acting it was.
I want to ask about the dust cloud too, but the herbalist is already here and painting my victory sigil on my back and I lose my chance. The Warrior moves around to collect his daggers. Catch helps and they exchange some words which are too quiet to be audible for me. Then the Warrior moves to join his fellows, watching another fight.
“Your next fight will happen as soon as you have recovered,” the herbalist tells me. “Your opponent is already waiting. Don’t take too long to rest or we will start anyway.”
I sigh a little – after four fights, I’m already getting a little tired, even if Meditation is helping me to keep my mana regeneration up with my usage. I will need a couple of minutes of at least Medium Meditation to replenish it after all the fire pulses I was doing here, not to mention the healing.
I sit cross-legged on the ground, Bastet and Catch moving in to guard me protectively. Before I drop into Medium Meditation, I take a glance at my next opponent – I might as well use the time to do some planning. After all, no doubt he’s been using the time during my fight to do just that.
*****
The fight is fine. After seeing that he was a Warrior who obviously focussed on physical defence and offence, based on his size and weaponry, I decide to swap Bastet back in. While I was definitely glad to have brought in Catch for the last fight, given the significant differences between his physical capabilities and those of a fully Evolved Warrior, he would simply be too outclassed to help me. Especially since he’s now used his once-a-day ability.
Perhaps it would have been better to hold onto that as an ace for later, but I don’t regret it. One reason I’ve been using so many different Skills and techniques during the fights is to show the samurans just what I’m capable of. After all, although not many of my job interviews, nor those I’ve conducted, have been as much of a literal fight as this is, the similarity is undeniable. That’s also why I’m determined to get through this without losing a single fight, even if I probably technically could based on the way they determine the overall winner.
Bastet doesn’t try to overpower her opponent – her advantages are speed and agility. Not to mention that she’s capable of magic all by herself. The samurans haven’t yet seen a fire-breathing raptorcat, but I’m sure that will happen by the end.
All of that goes to say that, although my fifth actual fight was with a higher ranking Warrior – since I don’t count Iandee’s – it was actually easier than my fourth. In the end, I repeat one of my previous finishing moves – stab him with my spear and then have Bastet keep him busy until I’ve been able to multiply the venom to the point it has him on the ground.
My sixth real fight was much the same, though I used my Flesh-shaping on this one to lock his joints since he gave me a good opening when he tried to take me down by wrestling with me in the first few moments of the fight. I got away from his hold easily enough – transforming myself temporarily into a human torch has the automatic reaction of making people let go, after all – but left him with a nice packet of mana imbued in his limbs.
My seventh fight, coming after two ‘fights’ with Peace and then Murmur, is a bit harder. It’s with a lithe and fast Warrior who manages to avoid my spear blows annoyingly well. In the end, I win by blinding him with a sudden flash of fire, much like in my second fight. This time, though, it’s Catch who trips him and then pins him rather than Bastet. Having my spear to his throat at the end is the same, though.
I’d feel disappointed over my lack of originality if I wasn’t more concerned about making it through without losing a fight. Besides, I know that after the Warriors are done, I still have the Pathwalkers to fight, which is going to be…interesting. And I’m concerned about my last two fights with the top Warriors.
Taking a short break between fights, courtesy of Lee quickly surrendering in our bout, I try to flush the fatigue out of my system in the same way as I helped my Bound in our rush to get to Fenrir. It definitely helps, but it's not an instant fix, nor does it take me back up to fresh-as-a-daisy status. Still, it prepares me for my eighth proper fight.
Once more it’s a Warrior who looks like he’s gone the gym bunny route rather than the runner one, but that almost relaxes me. Until he goes and pulls out what looks like a bola of all things.
I take my first major setback of the fights so far when the bola wraps itself around my ankle and trips me. Not only do the stones slam into my bone and give me probably deep bruises, but the Warrior was expecting me to fall and has prepared for it.
Bastet is in the fight with me, since I wasn’t expecting him to have a ranged weapon, and she’s unable to keep him away – he just charges straight forward and she has to clear out of his path or be trampled. As he gets to me, he lets loose with a bone-breaking kick that manages to lift me off the ground.
A kick from a samuran is not to be dismissed easily – their legs are strong, and their feet are clawed just like their hands. Fortunately, the chitin plates deflect the latter and the rest of the armour and undershirt cushion the former. A little.
I’m still left wheezing with the taste of blood in my mouth when I thump back down to earth a couple of metres away. Unable to move, and with a juggernaut hurtling towards me I instead have to send out an intense burst of fire to make him check himself.
Aingeal stirs over my shoulder and sends me a questioning feel. Asking whether it should intervene, I guess. I try to send it a negative feeling, but don’t have time to do more.
Bastet, fire-breath, I tell her shortly, then trust that she will keep him distracted for a moment and drop my own fire. Working faster than ever before, I heal the wounds from both impacts – enough, at least, to get up. As soon as I think I’m even remotely able to stand, I push myself to my feet.
Bastet seems to have attracted the Warrior’s attention enough for now, but as I watch, her fire dies completely. She’s probably out of mana. Her sluggish movements indicate that she’s suffering from mana-depletion, at least.
Pulling out my bow and arrow, I quickly nock an arrow to the string. Imbuing it with mana takes only a few moments, but they’re moments in which I have to watch Bastet dodge a walking mountain’s strikes. She’s getting tired, just like I am – her dodges are barely fast enough to keep ahead of him. I hurry up with my preparations.
I shoot the arrow. It pierces the meat of the samuran’s shoulder. The lizard-man turns to glare at me tauntingly, seeming to think I’d missed. The bone spike which I send towards his head, and which stops only when it’s pressing into his jaw, makes him freeze.
Increasing its pressure little by little sees him giving up in a short time and we finish the fight with relief.
With the eighth fight now done, there is only one to go. I should feel exhilarated, but instead I feel more apprehensive than anything else. After all, we barely squeaked through that fight, and from what I’ve seen, the boss Warrior, Shrieks-loudly, is not to be underestimated.