Somnus V - Chapter 28

The first thing she noticed was that even with her high reactions, it was hard to move at full speed through the maze of pillars. The second was that the tall alien had somehow produced a crossbow in each of their hands. Their twenty overly long fingers cradled the weapons, holding them in place and aiming the supposedly two handed weapons with ease.

 Kat’s eyes widened and she dove behind one of the pillars an eyeblink in front of a quarrel deflecting off of the stone right next to her. A half second later, her sense of danger flared, sending her sprinting out into the open as another projectile ricocheted off of a nearby pillar, zipping through her former hiding spot.

 She swore to herself, dropping into a crouch to bring her own crossbow up. The tall alien stood partially concealed behind a pill of their own, spidery fingers reloading each of their crossbows without ever bothering to remove the weapons from their hands.

Kat’s crossbow kicked slightly against her shoulder as she fired a bolt at Pleon-Ket’s chest. The tall alien bent their body like a willow in the wind, swaying gently to let the attack pass it by with the minimum of movement.

Then they were training both of their freshly loaded crossbows at Kat again. She broke into a run. There would be time for her to reload her own weapon once she managed to dodge the big alien’s shots.

A bolt darted through toward her at about knee level. Kat suppressed the urge to jump. She might be able to travel through the air with her domain, but that would only be the result of her changing gravity. Kat couldn’t react quickly, meaning that she would be little more than a target for her opponent’s follow up shot.

Instead she dove forward, planting her left hand in the sand followed by her shoulder, executing a roll while clutching her crossbow to her chest. A second later she was standing behind a second pillar.

Kat wasn’t breathing heavily, her stamina reserves ensured that, but her heart was going wild. Right now she was behind cover, but her evasive maneuvers had forced her to take her eyes off of Pleon-Ket. That meant that the alien knew where she was, but Kat didn’t have any-

She jumped to the side. Another bolt ricocheted off of a pillar with a loud snap, burying itself in the dirt next right where she had been standing.

The announcer hadn’t called foul. Pleon-Ket wasn’t using a weapon skill, but that was a distinction without a difference. Through either a class ability or an absurd amount of training the alien warrior was able to make use of the battlefield’s obstructions to redirect their attacks, leaving Kat vulnerable no matter where she hid.

For about a third of a second, Kat’s mind whirred wildly as she tried to find a way out of her predicament, but no matter what idea she came up with, the result was the same. Pleon-Ket could shoot faster and more accurately than her. A traditional hide and shoot duel would end with her losing one hundred times out of one hundred.

Rather than filling her with dread or anger, the realization was strangely freeing. Kat slipped around the pillar and broke into a run, Shadow Step speeding her movements. If a traditional fight would lead to an assured loss, the answer was to not fight in a traditional way.

Almost the second she was in the open, Kat had to dodge to the side as Pleon-Ket fired a quarrel at her. The tall alien seemed to sway and waver back and forth, their position never fixed well enough for her to draw a proper bead on them

Just as Kat made it to freedom, Pleon-Ket fired another quarrel. Apparently they had been reloading their other crossbow the entire time, waiting for an opportunity to try and pin Kat with two attacks in close succession.

This time, Kat jumped into the air, twisting the gravity around her so that ‘down’ became one of the nearby pillars. To an outside observer, it would look like an unnaturally high jump followed by an awkward flip, but to Kat, after weeks and weeks of practice, the action was all but second nature.

The bolt passed through her hair just as Kat’s feet touched stone. She Leapt from one pillar to the next, twisting gravity while she was in the air so that ‘down’ was always facing her next target.

 Shouts of surprise erupted around the arena. In a split second, Kat managed to track her route, mentally marking an erratic circle of pillars with Pleon-Ket roughly at its center. She landed on one tower of stone, bending her knees slightly before aiming herself toward another pillar some ten paces ahead and slightly further away from the alien archer.

A shiver of vertigo ran through Kat as the world flipped and shifted, gravity driving her from one pillar to the next. To her left, Pleon-Ket stood next to one of the stone towers, spinning as they tried to track Kat’s zig-zagging circular route around the alien.

After the first couple of jumps, Kat pricked up speed, timing the rhythm of touching down only to immediately jump again before her opponent could draw a proper bead on her. Already she was moving about as fast as a full sprint, but Kat could feel Shadow Step pricking at the edges of her consciousness. It seemed that her body was registering her evasive maneuvers as ‘running’ rather than ‘jumping,’ unlocking a whole series of extra options for her.

She grabbed a blunted bolt from her quiver, slipping it between her teeth as she rammed a second one into the crossbow. Another Leap sent her flying through the air, clearing the gap between her pillar and one much closer to Pleon-Ket.

Almost without looking, she snapped off a quarrel at the tall alien. They dodged out of the way easily, returning fire with both of their crossbows at the same time.

Kat had to respect her opponent’s aim. Despite both shots being hurried and mid-dodge, they would ordinarily have plucked her out of the air at the apex of her jump between the two pillars.

Instead, Kat tweaked gravity, her stomach flipping as she fixed gravity on the arena wall back the way she’d come.

Rather than hit bolts, Kat’s momentum slowed, yanking her away from her target just in time for both attacks to sail past her. Another shift in gravity saw her landing on a pillar and scrambling around to the far side.

Dozens of fans were shouting angrily, gesturing at the arena announcer as if to demand that the frog call foul as Kat pulled the quarrel out of her mouth and yanked back the string on her crossbow.

Below her, another bolt ricocheted off of a nearby pillar, sending an attack skimming across the cover at around shoulder level if Kat had been standing on the ground. She didn’t flinch, ignoring the missed quarrel even as she finished loading her own.

Kat took a deep breath, trying to settle herself and clear the vague dizziness from the sudden shifts. The moment she felt steady, Kat broke into a run, her gravity centered on the pillar beneath her feet as she spun around its outside.

Another quarrel snapped past as Kat fired her return shot, not really needing to see Pleon-Ket dodging the attack with ease. She jumped to the next pillar, keeping the stone between her and her opponent.

Pleon-Ket was fast. It wasn’t just the absurd speed that they were one-handedly reloading their crossbows, although that was beyond unfair in its own right, but every one of the over-sized alien’s movements seemed to blur.

Kat’s evasion skills and domain might keep her safe from her opponent’s crossbows, but their higher base abilities afforded them the same protection. Part of her mind tried to calculate how high the alien’s reaction was as she darted between pillars, occasionally taking a snapshot to keep them honest. 30? 35? Maybe 40? Whatever it was, the string on Kat’s crossbow simply couldn’t match Pleon-Ket’s ability to dodge.

  A bolt whipped past Kat, a subtle change in gravity arcing its trajectory away from her as it came within an arm’s length of her face.

 Two steps and then jump. Sometimes angled upward, sometimes down. Kat randomly alternated between jumping closer and further away from her opponent, never giving them a chance to settle into a predictable pattern.

 Neither of them were going to land a blow at this range. Kat was moving too quickly and erratically for Pleon-Ket to draw a bead on her, even with two crossbows, and her opponent was too agile for her weapon to actually overcome his defenses.

 Silently, she cursed her build. Kat knew that she was a good shot, but that was compared to players of her own level, and the main use of her crossbow was to deliver spells over a distance with Imbue. Maybe she had overestimated-

 She bit down on her lower lip, using the pain to silence her spiraling thoughts. No.

 Pleon-Ket had the attribute advantage, but the fight was far from over. Kat paused for a second, planting both of her feet on a pillar.

 A crossbow bolt tore through the air, roughly where Kat would have been if she had made the expected jump. Instead, she flipped gravity once again, launching herself directly toward her opponent, her loaded crossbow cradled in both hands.

 Pleon-Ket aimed their second crossbow at Kat, their left hand frantically reloading its weapon even as their right released its payload. She tweaked gravity, jerking herself to the right and arcing the quarrel to the left just enough to miss her as she accelerated toward the other warrior.

 Her opponent’s eyes widened as they realized what was happening. They darted around behind the nearest pillar, fingers going wild as they pulled back the strings on the crossbows and slotted new bolts into the weapons.

 Kat let a touch of gravity bring her lower before she pulled herself toward where the alien was hiding behind cover. There was still a bit of vertigo, even after all of her practice Kat’s body was still adjusting to the fact that all of her maneuvers ‘felt’ like free fall rather than controlled movement, but it wasn’t enough to distract her.

 She aimed her crossbow upward, holding her breath to prevent her body from trembling.

 Pleon-Ket’s pillar zipped past her, and Kat saw a flash of yellowish skin. She pulled the trigger on her crossbow.

 A fraction of a second later a quarrel hit her stomach like a fist, knocking Kat out of the air and into the ground below. She bounced once, sending sand flying everywhere as the crowd in the arena erupted in cheers.

 With a groan she sat up, wincing at the growing bruise on her stomach. Next to her was a crossbow bolt the size of her arm, a small sandbag tied to the end rather than a metal point. Evidently, Pleon-Ket had been waiting for her to fly past, just as she had been waiting for them.

 The alien walked over, a slightly sour expression on their face and both of their crossbows holstered. They reached down, offering Kat a hand covered in overly long fingers.

 “A good match,” they said, helping her to her feet. “We should repeat it before I pass the twenty fourth floor. Hopefully I will be more ready for your unique evasive skill set next time.”

 Before Kat could question them about the pain in her stomach, Botor interrupted her.

 “A tremendous and thrilling finish! Both competitors fired at almost the same time, but it looked like Competitor Debs was a heartbeat ahead of Competitor Pleon-Ket. Our experts have confirmed that her bolt struck three tenths of a second before Pleon-Ket’s. It was already a fight for the ages when Competitor Debs displayed her fantastic control over elemental gravity as well as her extreme agility, but we haven’t had a photo finish like that in quite some time.”

 The stands erupted in grumbles and complaints, likely from the spectators that had bet heavily against Kat due to the difference in levels.

 “I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT KAT!” Kaleek’s shout brought a smile to her face. “SERIOUSLY, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW RICH I AM RIGHT NOW. THE ODDS WERE TOO GOOD TO PASS UP.”

 She shook her head. Above her, Pleon-Ket released her hand and tapped her shoulder.

 “Go on,” they said, “get your skill stone. More than anyone else, I can attest that you’ve earned it. Still-”

 They paused for a second as if undecided as to whether they should continue. Finally, they spoke up.

 “Watch out for the other humans on the higher floors. I can’t describe it, but the man I encountered gave off a strange aura. It was like I was interacting with a shark. He didn’t say or do anything wrong, but I felt like any wrong interaction could have been my last. I don’t know what he’s planning, but I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side, and given your friends, I suspect that you don’t have that luxury.”

 Kat nodded. The human had to be Mr. Jackson. His earlier interactions with the stallesp were well known, and if a team of moles was carrying him up the tower, her already accelerated timeline might need to be bumped forward even more.

 If he was moving fast enough, the tower itself might not be enough to solve the problem. Millennium had largely disappeared after their last attempt to obstruct her integration into GroCorp’s shareholders, but that didn’t mean that they were defeated. Their general membership might’ve been deconstructed, but their core elites remained untouched.

She shook her head, jogging toward the pillar holding the announcer. Through the arena, the rest of the pillars began to lower into the sand as the people managing it began to change the setting for some other type of context.

Botor glanced over the edge, his shiny metal cap shielding his eyes as he blinked down at Kat. She didn’t waste any time, flexing mana now that there wasn’t a rule on spells to soar into the air in front of the announcer.

The alien frog opened its mouth. Its tongue shot out, depositing a skill stone in her hand before wrapping around her wrist. A pulse of warmth filled her as Kat felt marks transferring into her system.

She nodded her appreciation at the announcer and flew past him into the stands. The earlier disruption and upset over the results of her match were long forgotten. Already the warriors were purchasing more snacks and drinks in between placing bets on the next match. Evidently there was going to be some sort of weight lifting competition between two strength oriented individuals while their teammates peppered the other side with confusing and discomforting spells and abilities to try and throw the other competitor off.

As soon as Kat touched down, she began walking toward where Kaleek and the lokkel were sitting. Kaleek was practically standing on top of his bench, waving her down while the rest of the lokkel chatted quietly amongst themselves. Dorrik managed to tear himself away from Jaalin long enough to acknowledge her success with a nod before returning to his earlier conversation.

Kat walked up to the five of them, extending her arm and putting the Blade Burst skillstone into her ally’s hand.

“There you are,” she said, plopping herself down on the bench next to him. “I’m glad someone had some faith in me during that battle.”

“Dorrik and Jaalin had me put down some marks for them as well,” Kaleek replied cheerfully. “They were too busy talking about how they’re planning on handling the floor guardian in two days. Apparently the plan is to time both of our runs to see which group made it through faster. Sounds like Jaalin’s team is picking up their pace in order to match our progress through the dungeons.”

“Well,” she said with a quick shrug. “I’m glad everyone had faith in me then. Now absorb that skill stone. Our party could use a silver tier skill, and I don’t think that blade burst will synergize with Dorrik’s psi blades.”

Kaleek turned the crystal over in his rock a couple times before shaking his head and handing it back.

“Blade burst is more of an assassin ability,” he responded. “I use swords so it wouldn’t be entirely wasted on me, but the skill uses stamina to coat your weapon in energy that detonates a second after you stab or slash someone. For me, my greatsword should be devastating enough in and of itself that the extra harm caused by the explosion won’t add all that much to the equation. For you? A half dozen quick stabs at critical points are fatal with this skill, even if you’re fighting someone that’s heavily armored and loaded with hit points.”

“Are you sure?” Kat asked, forehead crinkling into a frown. “It uses up a lot of stamina. I have a decent stamina pool, but I’m not sure that I’ll be able to use the skill freely. That’s why I thought I’d give it to you.”

“No,” Kaleek said, closing Kat’s fingers around the stone. “You don’t use all that much stamina anyway. Think of it as a trump card, something you can use to disable a powerful opponent. I have abilities that I can’t use freely too, they’re usually my most powerful skills, and I doubt I’d be able to fight from the front lines half as well as I do if I didn’t have them to fall back on.”

“You keep the skill stone,” he finished, smiling at her. “You earned it. I’m touched that you thought to give it to me, but having me take it would be the wrong choice. I trust that you’ll be able to put it to good use.”
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