“Ethereon, don’t I get to choose a Skill to test myself?” Rylan asked, his confusion rapidly turning to alarm. Knife-Throwing was the Skill he’d been planning to choose, but still!
《Skill: Knife-Throwing, has been selected,》Ethereon simply repeated.《If you wish to alter your—》
A chill crawled up Rylan’s spine as Ethereon once more cut off mid-sentence. Tamina’s earlier comments about the Dungeons’ functions degrading suddenly felt very ominous. Maybe Ethereon simply doesn’t have a suitable reward to go with my Jumping Skill, and is trying to help me?
Of course, another possibility was that whatever being had led Rylan there was somehow interfering.
As he currently could no longer feel the tingles, Rylan had kind of assumed the being wasn’t able to reach him inside the Dungeon. But perhaps it simply no longer needs to direct me, now that I’ve entered...
《Three challenges await,》Ethereon suddenly continued.《After each challenge, your performance will be assessed-assessed-assessed—YOU—to determine whether passage to the next challenge should be granted. Reward selection will occur only upon completion-completion-completion—MUST—of the third challenge. The first challenge will commence-commence-commence—SUCCEED—when you pick up your projectiles. Good luck.》
For a long moment, Rylan remained frozen. What the fog is happening?!
On the one hand, it was a relief that the Dungeon didn’t appear to be falling apart. On the other, it seemed like whatever being had led him here was powerful enough to interfere with Ethereon.
Well... interfere with it a little, at least.
It seemed to have some goal in mind, but for whatever reason, it needed Rylan to actually succeed in the challenges first.
No pressure though, right?
Well, either way, it wasn’t like he’d come in here intending to fail.
As Rylan’s mind raced, the pink bricks making up the stone floor in front of him suddenly moved, causing him to nearly jump a foot in the air. He quickly calmed down when he realised it was just opening up to allow a plinth to rise up from beneath. On top of the rising pink stone lay a bandolier of silver cloth with twelve identical steel knives.
Right. The challenge will commence-commence-commence when I pick up the projectiles...
He let out a breath, and slapped both of his cheeks simultaneously with the palms of his hands. “Focus, Rylan,” he muttered to himself. “Nothing you can do about it now anyway, just roll with it.”
He jumped up and down a few times, shaking out his arms and psyching himself up. Finally, he decisively grabbed and donned the bandolier.
Looking up, he found a hovering array of glowing hexagonal targets had appeared in midair. The pink slabs of what looked like clay were covered in a pattern of concentric silver hexagons, and hung at different heights and distances, all around the platform.
At the same time, a second plinth rose up, holding a large hourglass filled with silver sand, somehow suspended in the upper chamber.
《Your first challenge commences,》Ethereon’s voice spoke, pleasantly uninterrupted and free of stuttering.《Using your chosen Skill, hit as many of the targets as you can before the sand runs out. Your time starts now.》
Taking a deep breath, Rylan strode forward, and drew his first knife. Glancing at the glittering silver sand which had started trickling down at a decent pace, he decided to take a moment to feel out the blade’s balance and flip it a few times, to get a feel for how it rotated.
His time may be limited, but so were his knives.
Only when he was satisfied he had a grasp on how it would fly, did he grab the knife by the blade, and charge up his Skill. He didn’t bother adding any more than the bare minimum of mana, as the challenge didn’t specify doing anything other than hitting the targets with his Skill.
Finally, he took aim at a nearby eye-level target, and let his blade fly.
It rotated a little slower than he’d expected, but he still hit the target pretty much dead on, causing the glowing clay tablet to break apart in a rather satisfying way. The broken pieces tumbled down into the silver light below together with the knife, soundlessly disappearing from sight.
Rylan didn’t waste time staring after them, already lining up his next, slightly higher and farther target.
***
Rylan watched with bated breath as his eleventh knife flipped over end once, twice, flying for the distant eleventh target. When it clipped the bottom with enough force to shatter the slab of clay, he pumped his fist and cheered.
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He’d managed to hit all of the targets he could find, and in fact, had a knife left!
However, as he glanced around, nothing changed yet. The last quarter or so of the sand was still trickling down, and no path to the next platform had appeared. Damn it, there must be a twelfth target after all; I knew it didn’t make sense! But where could it... wait.
Actually, he could think of only one place where a target could still be hidden. He glanced at the hourglass, seeing there was now only about a sixth left, and carefully hurried over... to the edge.
Upon approaching the final three feet, he lay down on his belly, and crawled the rest of the way until he could peek over.
There had been two targets that had hung lower than the platform, but those had been easy enough to spot. He’d even made a lap around to look straight down, and spotted nothing.
However, he hadn’t looked underneath.
Gritting his teeth, he leaned over the edge of the foot-thick platform a little farther, and craned his neck. Fog, it’s actually there!
Hovering just below the middle of the platform, slowly spinning in place, was the twelfth and final target.
Rylan grinned. Ethereon had almost fooled him, but not quite. Not that this was going to be an easy throw, hanging over a ledge with blood rushing to his head.
Still, he probably had next to no time left, so he drew back his knife, charged it up, and waited just a split second for the target to rotate to face him straight on. The moment it did, before he could second-guess himself, he whipped his arm forward.
Under the circumstances, he couldn’t fully complete the motion, so his throw was a little off. It glanced off the bottom of the platform, ricocheting down, but thankfully still hit the target, causing it to shatter.
“Yes!” Rylan cried happily. Then he quickly scrambled back from the edge, as the platform started to rumble ominously. As he sat up on his knees, he saw the plinths moving down, only a few grains of sand still suspended in the hourglass’ upper chamber. At the same time, a stone bridge started to extend from his platform up to the next one.
《First challenge performance has been assessed,》Ethereon’s voice spoke.《Access to the second challenge granted. The next challenge will commence when you pick up your projectiles.》
Excited, he got up and, the second the bridge finished extending, started jogging over it.
On the next platform, he was met by two more rising plinths, one supporting a slightly larger hourglass, and another holding a bandolier with twelve knives.
He took a moment to calm his nerves and let his hands stop jittering, before he took a deep breath, grabbed the bandolier, and slung it over his shoulder, on top of the empty one.
《Your second challenge commences. Using your chosen Skill, hit as many of the targets as you can before the sand runs out. Your time starts now.》
When he looked up, new targets had appeared. Except this time, they were all moving.
Swallowing some spit, Rylan stepped forward and lined up his first throw at a target simply moving side to side. After watching it for a few seconds, he figured he knew its pattern, then threw his blade at the part where it stopped and reversed on the right.
His heart skipped a beat when it seemed like he’d thrown it too early, but thankfully, his blade hit the leading edge, and the clay shattered.
The next target was moving clockwise along an upright circle, and after taking careful aim, he hit it dead-on, at the top of its movement.
I can do this!
He confidently continued to a third target that was rapidly moving to and from the platform, and lined up the shot.
However, he didn’t get the timing quite right. He underestimated the speed at which the target was moving and, instead of hitting it just as it stopped, his blade ended up chasing it while it moved backwards.
And then the projectile dropped too low, and missed.
His stomach sunk. Then he blinked in surprise as the target seemed to partially fade from existence, turning transparent like a thin piece of finely woven cloth.
Fog! Does that mean I only get to try once per target?!
Well, no matter; he only had twelve knives anyway. Though it did mean he would have to move on to a harder target whenever he missed...
He hurriedly continued, managing to hit a target that moved in hexagons, then one flying in triangles. The movement patterns quickly progressed in difficulty, causing him to have to spend more time figuring them out before he could make an attempt.
With sweat beading on his brow, and sand trickling down the glass, he hit another three targets.
However, on his ninth throw, he lost his patience, and misjudged how fast the target would perform a particular loop. He missed. Once again, as he started swearing, the target turned opaque.
With shaking fingers, he pulled out his tenth knife, and moved on. This time, he went for a target that had been taunting him for a while now, dipping in and out of view in a sinuous pattern as it circled the edges of the platform.
He raced ahead of it, prepared himself, and hit it point-blank when it appeared.
Then, craning his head up, he pulled out his eleventh knife, and took aim at a target performing a complicated series of swooping manoeuvres, high up in the air.
He took a deep, calming breath, waited for the right moment, then let his blade soar.
Unfortunately, the target was rather far away, and while he’d made a good attempt, he ended up overshooting it.
Fog! That’s three misses already! What is the cut-off point before I don’t get to move on to the next challenge?!
Drawing his twelfth knife, Rylan spun around, looking every which way, but didn’t spot the last target, only the three opaque ones, mocking him.
Looking at the rapidly disappearing sand in the hourglass did nothing to soothe him, so he rushed over to the edge and dropped down to look beneath the platform, his last knife ready to fly.
However, there was nothing there.
Cursing, he scrambled back to his feet, and started jogging a lap around the platform, his head swivelling left and right, up and down.
Come on, it has to be here somewhere!
Desperate, he once more glanced at the hourglass, then froze.
He was down to the final dregs, but that wasn’t what had stopped him. He’d spotted something, in the reflection.
With no time left to consider his actions, he took a deep breath, and threw his knife straight back over his shoulder.
When he heard the sound of shattering clay, he sagged to his knees in relief.
The last target had been following him, hovering straight behind his head, just out of sight. Sneaky sneaky, Ethereon. But not sneaky enough!
Once more, the platform started to rumble, as a bridge started to extend to the next one.
《Second challenge performance has been assessed,》Ethereon spoke coolly.《Access to the third challenge granted. The final challenge will commence when you pick up your projectiles.》
Two down, one to go...
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