In the morning we were struggling so much we had to get help from the rest of the team.
We were washed, dressed, fed, and washed again. With only moments of awareness. We were brought to the training rooms, both of us needed two people, to keep us moving and focused on moving in the right directions. Once in the shielded training room, our confusion lifted slightly, to the point that we could be left unattended.
As the first part of the morning reached the end of the training period that the rest of the team was receiving. Lara and I had drifted to the point that we were sitting together holding hands. We had been placed at the side of the room some distance apart. To the surprise of the team and even Elizabeth, we had shuffled the chairs so that we were shoulder to shoulder. This had occurred without anyone even being aware of the movements
It was time to move to the arena, It rapidly became obvious that given the state of our confusion we would be unable to walk. We made it out of the barracks, to the main road. At that point, Elizabeth commandeered a cart. Lara and I were transported to the arena sitting on the tailgate of the cart.
Lara was taken, nay nearly dragged into the gate that led to the seating, and I was also forced to enter the floor of the arena and take my seat. Once there I was aware of everyone on the team, but I kept looking directly at Lara’s location. The competition started with single combat. I paid no attention to anything that was happening around me. Then my name was called. A peculiar state of mind settled on me. I was completely focused on the situation. I stood unassisted and marched to the arena circle. Once there I started attacking the golem that was my opponent even as the announcer was promoting the fight.
My foe was large, heavily armored, in many ways, not the ideal opponent. So rather than attacking the center mass of the creature, I started to attack the leading leg. As the creature moved forward the shield failed to cover its knee and I sped forward and lightly struck the foot. This caused its shield to cross the body blocking its sword, enabling me to spin briefly exposing my back to attack. Continuing the swing and extending the reach of the hammer, the head of the hammer struck the knee with a forceful blow. The knee moved in a direction that knees are not supposed to be able to bend in. What followed was a series of exchanges where the creature blocked my attacks with its shield and I parried and deflected its blows with my hammer. A pattern became established, and the golem had highly limited movement due to the knee damage. The damage was slowly repaired. I fainted with an attack on the sword side of the body and used a movement skill to step past the golem on the shield side. With a powerful two-handed blow that struck downwards onto its shoulder, I used a “crush” skill and shattered the shoulder joint of the golem. This resulted in the arm carrying the shield dropping as it was now unable to bear the weight of the shield. At this point, the fight was over. It attempted to spin to face me while swinging its sword at my chest, but as its weight moved over the weakened knee it collapsed forward onto the knee. This meant that its strike was weak and easily blocked by the haft of my hammer. Resulting in its head being completely open to attack so with a “strike” its head was driven into the chest cavity and the golem no longer functioned.
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With this, the fog of confusion started to encapsulate me again and I barely made it back to the bench. So while I should have been tired by the speed and complexity of the combat, I felt refreshed. Before comfortably sinking back into the fog, The notification icon in my HUD was blinking at a furious rate. Yet even as I thought that I should do something about that everything blurred and all that I could do was wander trapped in my mind through the web of flows that were the delta of power.
The next time that I was aware was much later when the Red 1 was called for group combat. I was unaware until I reached the arena circle what foes we would face. They were some form of insect. There were 10 of them that attacked as a coordinated force just as soon as the cage dropped.
Robert snapped a shield in place, Fanny projected an aura that enhanced the recovery of power. The power that flowed was both sweeter and flowed more freely. It started at a low level but I could tell that it was going to keep growing as time progressed. This was a new skill. An area to the right of the changing insects which resemble praying mantises lit up with a pale red glow. I rotated my attack line so that this area was behind the mobs. Fired up the taunt skill. This brought the attention of the mobs to me. I then just before they reached me triggered the sharp shield skill. This helped focus their attention even more. I was unable to kill them with one blow, although I was certain that the critical skills that I had would have done so. But rather I danced around crippling them, by breaking limbs, blinding some of their multiple eyes, and shattering their arms that were more like swords than anything else.
I drew them back towards one side while keeping the area that my senses were indicating as hazardous behind the mobs. The area at first had been moving towards Fanny and Robert, but since they were standing still, and I was dancing over the sand, the field soon started to move quite rapidly towards me. I called out to Robert “Open fire on the ones that are lagging behind. I aim to circle you.”
His fire bolts had changed even since yesterday. They leaped quickly towards the wounded mantises punching holes in their skin and cooking them from the inside.
I was still in control of those that were attacking me but was now taking damage. Fanny was landing spot healing that was keeping me fully topped up. But I wanted to end the threat of the visible mobs before whatever was hidden beneath the sand arrived. I used a skill that I was not even aware of. I triggered “Flare” all the mobs left alive shuddered and fell twitching to the ground. Their thoughts shut down and they died. Moments later a giant beetle propelled itself from the ground. It appeared to expect a disorganized force. But in actuality received a crushing blow between the eyes. Followed by a spike of fire that descended from the cloudless sky. Robert had been preparing something that was very powerful and delivered. My blow cracked the armored shell that covered the head the spike ruptured the head and cooked brains splattered my shield which only allowed small fragments to reach me.
I turned and started to walk toward Lara, Robert and Fanny intercepted me and brought me back to the benches. By the time I was seated, I was lost again in my mind.
As soon as we reached the barracks it was decided to put us in our beds
We kept struggling to move the beds together so they decided to place us in the same bed. Once we had skin-to-skin contact, we peacefully went to sleep.