Once Tiberius was in the pit, I didn’t hesitate for a moment. I shot a reduced fireball at him high, and as he raised his shield to block that, I launched a stonetoss at his shin. The stone struck true, but Tib didn’t even flinch, just lifting his leg out of the muck, and walking toward me.

I ran toward him ducking at the last minute and sliding in the mud to get behind him. I swung at him, but somehow he managed to bring his small wooden shield down quickly enough to stop me. I dodged a return blow, and then moved closer, sending out a flurry of strikes.

Tib’s guard was perfect. He blocked or deflected every blow, somehow detecting what was and wasn’t a feint, all while sending out the occasional lightning fast blow of his own that I was forced to dodge.

I activated both Adrenaline, and Focus, increasing my perception, speed, and strength. I attacked faster, and faster, trying to break his guard, but having no luck, I threw magic into the mix. I flash stepped just before my blows came down to get past his guard, greased his sword and shield hand, blasted dust in his face with a reduced stone toss, but nothing worked. The only change in Tib was that I could see heavy sweat starting to build on him, and my own Mana and Stamina bar was rapidly dwindling.

I started to summon invisible steps around him in an attempt to restrict his movements and get at least a single hit in, but he smashed through them. Soon my goal was no longer victory, but just to land a single strike. I stuck my hand in the mud between us, and when he went to strike, I flash stepped and cast a half fireball directly into the mud. It flew everywhere, and I flash stepped into the air, landing on an invisible step, then went to strike the top of Tiberius’ head. Instead, I once again hit the shield, and this time he pushed with it, slamming into my chest and throwing me into the fence line.

There was a cheer from the now standing former pile of defeated and I threw a glare at them, even as I tried to force air back into my lungs. Tiberius was moving toward me steadily, not charging, just moving in a way that made me feel like a tank was about to run me over. I hadn’t tested it, but I took a risk and cast Puppet.

A goblin appeared behind Tiberius, and I had a sudden intense wave of disorientation as I tried to move him closer. It was like I had to move two bodies with one brain, and move him as if I was in third person rather than first. The fact that Ran had been able to control them by the hundreds was incredible. I reactivated Focus, but left adrenaline off, which granted me enough presence to control the goblin who I had leap at Tib from behind at the same moment I leapt at him from the front. He swung around and blocked the goblin with his shield, while trying to parry me with his sword. I swung it aside and landed a single solid blow on his chest just as my blended mana and stamina bar faded to nearly nothing.

“Got you,” I managed to say, sliding down into the muck with no energy left with a smile on my face.

“Damn,” he responded, falling down next to me.

“Well boys, there you have it,” said Sulla. “The techniques I teach you here can be effective against any opponent.”

I heard some grumbling followed by one of them saying. “There’s just no way we cou-”

“LAPS! Twenty! Around the yard! GO! GO!”

The guards snapped to attention, and started jogging, some of them with a more than slight limp.

Tib and I were left laying on the ground, both of us panting. “I don’t remember the mirror version of you having a defense quite that good. He was also crap at reading my feints, no offense.”

Tib chuckled. “Well, you did tell me that after you fought him. Made me pay more attention when I watched you in other fights. Also, I selected my new class yesterday. Guardian has an ability that allows for perfect defense within a certain range, but the stamina cost is extreme.”

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I dragged myself up, scraping some of the mud off of myself. Luckily I wasn’t wearing my favorite black and gold outfit. I held out a hand for Tib and helped him stand then I walked over to the gate, where Sulla was standing.

“Well, I don’t know if my boys learned much more than humility, but by Life they needed more than a little of that too.” He paused to yell at his men to hustle, before returning his attention to us. “I’ll send you back to your cell with a good lunch and think about maybe cutting your time down a day. Just don’t make much of a fuss.”

“Yes sir,” said Tib.

“No prob.”

“Tiberius, I can tell you’ve kept up with your drills. You're a master with that shield now. Guess adventuring can help you pick up a thing or two.”

“It’s a good place to learn on your feet, sir.”

He nodded and turned to two of the running men. “Tertius, Curio! Escort them back to their cell, make sure they get something from our kitchen.” He paused. “And if I find out you spat in their food, I’ll let them know and toss you into the cell with them for an hour.”

The men nodded, one of them smiling sheepishly, clearly having been the one in mind when Sulla added that order to the end. Then they led us to a kitchen, where we were able to load up a plate full, then we were escorted back to our cell.

“Hope you two aren’t too sore,” I said as they slid the cell closed.

They just frowned at me and walked off, making what I imagined they thought was a subtle rude gesture at me as they walked away.

Once they left, Tib and I dug into our food without bothering to make any conversation. We were too tired to bother, and needed to regain our energy as quickly as we could after how much of it we’d both expended in our sparring match. We’d likely overdone it, but it was nice to test out my new limits. I had a feeling I’d have performed much better against almost any other opponent, but Tib had adjusted his style to counter me, and his prestige class seemed to be the antithesis of my own. The unbreakable object to my unstoppable force. I was exaggerating of course, but it was the best description I could come up with in my head as I ate.

Once the food and rest had caused my stamina and mana bars to recuperate a bit I started thinking more about the puppet ability. It clearly wasn’t something I could regularly use in its current form. It was costly, and control took up a significant amount of my attention, which could be life or death in a fight. Still, I was certain there was some use for it, I just didn’t know it yet.

The first thing would be to make it cheaper. Since I’d received it after I’d gained the mana system, I wasn’t automatically given the reagents for it, or even told what they were for the benefit of my ‘use reagent’ ability. It wasn’t the type of thing Millicent would know off the type of her head, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to ask Ran about it. I pulled up my character sheet and looked at my ‘Eye of the Storm’ ability. Then I pulled up the historical log of notification I got and found the one that had changed the magic system. I highlighted it, and willed Eye of the Storm to activate. I felt a kind of lurch across my entire body, followed by an intense emptiness and discomfort as the energy I’d grown used to feeling, had vanished instantly.

I scrolled back through my character sheet and found the Puppet spell.

Puppet-Summon a fake duplicate of a creature (cost:1 doll))

I checked my pocket, but was disappointed to find that the reagents hadn’t auto populated for me like they had before. It was likely due to the fact that it was a bonus given when the spell was first received, and I’d already had the spell when I activated Eye. Looked like I’d need to make some little hay dolls or something in my spare time.

Aside from the cost of it, there was also the difficulty of controlling it, but there was no reason I needed to summon anything as complex as a goblin. I focused, casting the spell while also reducing it and managed to manifest a single arm coming out of the cell wall. The arm was my own, and it took much less attention to move it while I was able to move myself. I had it lift a cup of water to my lips as I cut a piece of meat on my plate at the same time.

Tiberius was just looking at me with squinted eyes, his own fork a few inches from his mouth. He put it down and sighed. “Do you ever think to warn people when you’re about to try doing something that disconcerting?”

“Uh, no. Not usually.”