Three minutes. A sharp scream, then silence.
The door opened again, and a hand grabbed someone else. Ratface counted. Sure enough, after three minutes he screamed.
“Whatever grabs them only attacks on three minutes,” she said to the girls around her.
The next time the door opened, multiple hands reached out. One for each of the remaining trial takers. Kryssa and Ratface zipped away from their hand and further into the room.
Kryssa asked.
It had to be said, of Ratface’s group, she wasn’t the best fighter. The truth was that magic was the great equaliser and she wasn’t nearly good enough with a sword to cross that distance.
What she was good at was surviving, and one thing struck her has true. Something she hadn’t realised the first time she’d examined the room.
There had been people in the room she didn’t recognise. Had, because they’d been the first ones taken.
If this was a test, then she had to remember what the conditions were. She and Kryssa zipped across the room as they darted away from the claw. She and Kryssa had gotten down most of how to use this particular move. They just hadn’t worked out how to stop yet. To get around this, Kryssa was basically jerking Ratface in a bunch of different directions. It kept her out of the claw but it was taking a toll on her body. Eventually she’d have to get caught just to take a break.
So, before that she had to work out the trial. She already had all the clues. What was the actual trial? Testing if the armour was worthy. They’d assumed that meant the three tests of defence, attack, and mobility.
Ratface looked over to the three woman who’d be most worthy in the room. Each of them had their claw well in hand.
Fulgora had called a storm down on hers. It was twitching in front of her as the girl poured lightning into it. She couldn’t keep that up forever, but she could long enough to work out what to do next. Already Fulgora was watching someone.
She’d chosen the Champions squire to watch. That girl had slipped around the grab and was now riding the claw back into the room. Fulgora saw this and shrugged, then jumped onto her own claw.
The orc girl had just grabbed her one. Her natural strength was helping but the armour around her was empowered. Ratface could feel the familiar strength of the water serpents around her. Another claw spun out and grabbed the orc from behind. The orc allowed herself to be pulled in.
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Right armour worthy, but worthy of rune knights. The kind of people who manhandled golems. Whatever they fought would be tough.
The moment she was through she switched to offence. A short zap came from her and made her claw twitch open. She rolled out of the thing and looked around.
Okay so the claws had deposited them all here. Four claws lay broken while the others had snuck back into hiding. Ratface sat up as her own one slunk away.
“Everyone get up and work out how long you’ve been here,” she yelled, “in exactly three minutes something is going to attack.”
But what was going to attack? What was a foe equal to rune knights? She was pretty sure she’d worked out the trial. They had to defeat something in their new armour. It had to be worthy of a knight which meant she in turn had to be worthy. She had three minutes to work out what it would be.
There’d been another clue. Most of them would fail this test.
Ratface got to see exactly what they had to fight. She’d been one of the last in after all.
Dragon heads twisted out of the darkness towards them. They caught the first of the trial takers and slammed them into the floor. They looked dead. Ratface hoped they weren’t.
The second wave gave her a better look. Not real dragons, just golem heads. She could even see the joints where they’d changed from the claw into the head. This group did slightly better, jumping out of the initial snap. They were immediately wreathed in fire and dragged away. It was just the other girls, then her, now. Ratface got her crossbow ready and looked into the magic around them. A layer of illusion laid over the fallen bodies and she let out a sigh of relief. Not dead at least. Still failed.
She watched the three remaining trial takers. They all had different dragon heads attacking them because they’d broken their claws.
The dragon heads came at them with a snap first. They all dodged except the orc who caught hers again. It was tempting to call her simple, but Ratface watched how carefully she grabbed, pulling the joints of the thing in such a way that it couldn’t gain footing. It opened its mouth to burn her, and she slammed it shut. The heat washed into the mouth. The orc knew she was fighting a golem and the metal melted under its own attack. The head lay in front of her.
Fulgora dodged behind the head. A superior version of Ratface’s zip. She slammed her hands into it and the world went white with lightning before it fell to the floor.
The squire took the longest and was also the most useful to Ratface. She struck at joints on the thing, constantly dodging fire and snaps. Ratface watched the magic and noticed how carefully the squire avoided where the fire came from. That’d be the core then.
Ratface watched the flow of mana on the three heads stop. One last thread of mana still thrummed and Ratface turned to face her own.
Unlike all of these girls, she wasn’t worthy of her armour. She wasn’t magic. She didn’t have some great ability that would let her crush the head like they all had. So, she lined her crossbow up and cheated.
The claw was rearranging itself into a head still. It had to put the core somewhere it could use its fire. Ratface waited for the moment that the claw was halfway though switching to a dragon head. Its core shone brilliantly to her eyes. It was a beautiful thing. It was also vulnerable.
She shot a single bolt into the dark and straight into the core. It cracked and Ratface watched the mana around it fail. She smiled.
She didn’t have a great skill like the others, so she’d used one of the first tricks she’d been taught from other goblins when learning how to fight.
Hit them before they were ready.