Lysarias eyes filled with a flash of green incandescence as both strikes collided in mid-air causing her ears to start ringing. Wincing she glanced from the impact site to the confident knight of death, not wanting a repeat of that attack she channelled essence into her sword and slashed diagonally at the figure's feet.
The figure in plate jumped and the essence passed under its feet without much effort, Clank! The figure's body leaned back into a two-hand over the shoulder chop at her from across the room. Lysaria was gasping for breath and holding her short sword in a white-knuckled grip.
She used the second of the overly long swing to charge her own essence slash before diving out of the way and slashing at her much larger opponent. Her 6foot 2 frame was dwarfed by the giant in shining armour. smirking with triumph she watched her slash gouge into the arm of the unsuspecting warrior.
With her strike, she got her first glimpse of leaking essence from the armoured figure. The knight charged her with a bellow shaking dust from the ceiling, Lysaria could hear the hate and rage in the deafening war cry.
Lysaria did her best to stay out of range of the enraged warrior, no longer was the warrior showing grace now it was swinging wildly. The warrior was swinging the massive axe with all of its might doing its best to cut her in half. Lysaria was only able to dodge the swings because the figure could only swing at her with its one good hand.
The unwieldy battle axe looked much more awkward wielded one-handed, Lysaria scraped her right arm rolling from a wild swing and lashed out with an essence charged swipe. Her slash cut into the thigh of the warrior and more glittering essence leaked from his thigh. Lysaria waited for the new attack, just like last time when the armoured warrior was injured its bellowing cry shook the room.
The figure recklessly ran forward and Her long leap pushed her aside from its wild one-handed strike before burying her essence powered sword into the center of the glittering chest plate. Her sword parted the steel screeching and vibrating, glittering blood covered the front of the left side of the chest plate.
She held on to her sword hilt as she felt steel arms wrap around her and pull her in closer against her own hilt digging the blade in deeper. Feeling her back starting to crack and pop underneath the vice-like grip Lysaria Channeled all of her essences through her sword and pushed the blade up to the hilt into the massive figure. The terrible pressure on her back fell away as the figure lost the strength to fight back.
All she could do was gasp for breath as she felt her bruised ribs protest even with a breath, the massive pain in her body and her shaking hand was a testament to the difficult battle. Collapsing to the floor she pushed aside her sword and lay there squeezing her eyes shut and gently cradling her broken ribs. She felt the satisfying feeling of relief and opened her eyes to watch as the figure beside her broke apart turning to essence.
Her relief was almost instant as essence entered her body repairing her wounds and removing dirt and dust from her many cuts. Gaining essence didn't clean her however and she desperately needed to clean her clothes and wash all of the sticky blood from her hair. Lysaria just lay there taking long breaths waiting until she could see her vessel.
Lysaria took in a breath of the dusty air and marvelled at the power of essence, dusty covered her throat and she almost choked on her own saliva when her vessel appeared in her vision. A staggering 500 essences filled her vessel, she couldn't believe her eyes. Lysaria gingerly stood to her feet, her ribs were healed but that didn't mean she couldn't remember the searing pain from a moment ago.
Her body absolutely shook with the massive amount of essence she now held in her body, her skin had a faint sheen as though polished and she marvelled at the smooth feel of her skin. glancing around Lysaria searched for her sword and found the wooden handle with a melted blade, well that was new, she hadn't known channelling essence through metal would melt it.
Walking over she grasped a coin metal coin with a weapon emblazoned on the center with glimmering essence. Before turning to the wall with pedestals, She could see that all of the pedestals were empty. Behind the left, most pedestals was a weapon against the wall. The third hardest pedestal which gave her the metal coin had a dagger, The second pedestal was completely empty.
She tried to take the long straight dagger from the wall, no matter how hard she tried the weapon wouldn't budge. On a hunch, she held the steel coin to the weapon and was blinded for a moment as the coin burst into essence and entered the blade.
Reaching forward she grasped the short blade, the weapon metal handguard stuck out on each side, while the handle was wrapped in black fabric. thrusting the dagger forward She had the feeling the balance and weight were just right, the dagger felt light and well balanced perfect for stabbing between armour plates.
Lysaria glanced to her left passing over the empty second pedestal feeling upset that she missed out on something from the second most powerful figure. The first pedestal held a rack with a sword on the wall, She couldn't decide what kind of sword it was. The weapon was not the same as her old basic sword she could see essence flowing underneath the steel in a beautiful steam pattern.
Lysaria held her glowing coin covering her eyes, the sword flashed as the coin came in contact. reaching for the grip she held the one-handed sword in her left hand. The short curved sword had a one-handed grip with half a foot of steel that protruded straight from the handle before the blade hooked in a crescent for a foot and a half.
The single-edged weapon had a thick base that tapered to a triangle point and felt like she could cut down a tree. Unlike her other sword, this one wasn't for thrusting She thought the weapon might be a khopesh only this one was longer by half afoot. Lysaria had read about this weapon when studying human civilization and knew this weapon was common there.
Lysaria looked around the room and couldn't find anything left, she hadn't heard the door reopen but decided to check anyway. Holding Her Khopesh in her left hand she idly swung the curved blade in front of her getting a feel for the oddly curved blade.
Grinning like a fool she slashed at invisible foes remembering what the battle and slashing essence had felt like, she had learned so much from fighting today. She left her trial as the door back was open and no longer flowing with essence. She left the room into the starting chamber, Hectar was sitting in a chair holding a wooden handled steel hammer, he looked embarrassed and wouldn't meet Lysarias eyes.
She said," how did your challenge go?" He said," I couldn't do it, I only passed 7 out of the 10 challenges." Lysaria said," I only survived by pure luck when I challenged the 10th challenge," Hectar said," wait you beat the tenth challenge?" Lysaria presented the odd weapon to Hectar. he tentatively took the weapon by the handle, his face grimacing when the point of the blade crashed to the floor.
Hectares eyes went wide he glanced from both Lysaria back to the sword, he said," I can barely lift the handle how can you wield the weapon within one hand?" She said," well I did gain a lot of essences from completing the challenge." Hectar proudly said "I received 100 essences," His face turned from sour and dejected to happy with sharing that news." Lysaria only smiled she couldn't bring herself to tell him she received over double what he had.
She rested her hand on his slumped shoulders," Don't worry there are plenty of other challenges in the place and next time I will be there to help you succeed." Looking around at the empty room she said," how long have we been down here?" Hectar said," what do you mean we have been down here two days at least."
Lysaria's mind spun said," for me, it feels like I have only been gone for maybe 2 hours." Hectar frowned at her, He said," my challenge had a timer for each of the building projects and almost 48 hours have gone by." Lysaria glanced back to the doors and was confused when two of the doors were missing.
She said," did you seen me leave the doorway?" Hectar said," no one minute no one was here and the next I could see you walking over to me." Lysaria said," this place is creepy how it plays with our minds, I can't stand the thought of something controlling us like that."
Hectar said" I ran out of time On project 8 and didn't have the courage to challenge 9 or 10," Lysaria said," you did the best you can so don't worry about not passing, the 7th challenge must have been tough." Clank! She looked up to see Thana standing in front of a now blank wall her long golden hair and well-kept clothes fit her perfectly. Overshadowing everything was her brilliant smile and the book she was holding in her left hand.
Thanas enthusiasm made Lysaria smile and forget about the upset Hectar, Thana jogged over to the sulking Hectar and said," I made it past the 8th challenge and learned soo much, I can't believe how much I didn't know before." Lysaria said," check out my cool sword," She casually held out her beautiful smooth weapon, now that she held it the weapon no longer glowed and felt light and comfortable.
Thana took the weapon by the hilt and immediately the point clanged to the ground as Lysaria and Hectar did their best not to laugh. Thana said," light take me how do you lift this weapon let alone swing it around." Lysaria said," I thought it was because of how much essence I have but the weapon is glowing now, when I hold it Then the metal looks mostly like normal steel."
Only one door remained, and the group waited to watch the open door, the remaining door no longer was covered in essence and She wondered if they should go find Dakar. Her heart raced thinking that maybe something had happened to Dakar. Lysaria said," let's go and find him, maybe this is a new part of the challenge, a man in need of saving."