Chapter 3 - Gahorem

"Are you serious?" Sha watched as Puck flew wildly towards the mountainside. He hit with such incredible force, and he didn't stop when he hit the mountain. A massive hole formed upon his impact, cracks spread upward for miles, and quickly the hole was covered by the resulting rockslide.

Sha blinked and was floating over the impact site. She wasn't sure just how deep Puck had gone, but she could sense that he was still alive. "Well, we were coming here anyway" Sha sighed as she floated off down the mountainside towards the base of the mountain. "It looks like you'll be meeting Gahorem ahead of schedule. I hope, given your recent display of strength, that you'll be able to survive if he finds you before I do" she thought.

"Mmmghrhughh" Puck tried to open his eyes, but there was only black. "AH!" Puck spasmed

BOOM

Puck had jerked out of fear, and in doing so sent the rocks and dirt he'd been covered by flying. Suddenly he hit the ground again hard, but this time it wasn't dirt and rocks that he hit, it was some kind of smooth marble-like floor. As he tried to pick himself up off the ground he felt like his body weighed ten times more than it had before, he was still able to stand, but it was very difficult. At first he thought he was just severely injured and the pain hadn't hit due to adrenaline or something, but as he examined himself he found that he hadn't taken any damage at all. "How is that possible??" Puck couldn't believe it. First he finds out he's suddenly ridiculously strong, and now he's able to survive hitting a mountain like a meteor? This was too much.

"Oh my god what am I doing!? The last time I stood up I almost flew into space accidentally, I have to be careful." Puck stood very still. But he realized that he actually hadn't flown off again when he stood up, in fact it felt he could barely keep standing up because of the odd gravity he was feeling. He wasn't sure if he could even walk. Slowly, he attempts to slide one foot forward, not wanting to risk flying away in case standing up successfully was a fluke. Slide complete, no problems so far. He steps forward with his other foot. We're still on the ground, awesome.

Feeling a bit of relief with his groundedness, Puck looks up from his feet to take stock of his surroundings. He finds that he's in a massive circular room, the ceiling appears to be made of the mountain he crashed through. The hole through which he'd made his grand entrance seemed to have magically repaired itself, leaving rubble on the floor as the only trace anything had happened there. "That's weird" Puck thought. He noticed the light in the room was coming from thousands of strange fat white mushrooms that dotted the walls and ceiling. On the opposite end of the room he spied a door with a little bench next to it.

Seeing nothing else of note in the room, Puck decided to head on to the door. As he walked he felt the overbearing gravity pushing him down, he was starting to sweat. He was about 500 feet from the door now, but somehow it seemed like the invisible force weighing him down was increasing as he got closer to his goal. Puck was now drenched in sweat, his muscles were being pushed to their limits, but still he stepped forward, where else could he go? With this new gravity in place, and the fact that the wall he crashed in through seemed to magically repair itself, he wasn't very confident he could get out the same way he came in. So on to the door he pushed.

The pressure was definitely increasing as he got closer to the door. When he came within 50 feet of the door it was suddenly too much to bear, his knees buckled and he fell to the floor flat on his face. "Ow" he squeezed the word from the side of his mouth that wasn't pressed against the smooth floor. "I can't just lay here, I have to try to get out of this room. If I can just get through that door, maybe this weird pressure will let up" he thought. So he tried, he pushed up with his arms and managed to peel his face off the floor. He strained every muscle in his body, his veins bulged as he slowly stood upright "Ok, let's go" Puck said to himself through gritted teeth. Every step was agony, all of his bones creaked against the weight as if they might give in and break at any moment. He pushed and pushed until finally, he stepped off of the smooth floor and onto stony ground. Suddenly the extreme gravity was gone and he fell forward onto the little bench in a crumpled pile.

After laying on the bench in that position for what seemed like hours, Puck heard the sound of a lock sliding open. He turned his head to look at the door, the little round handle turned slowly, and then it opened. A large, horse like head, with little antennae looking growths between its ears came through the door, followed by its neck, and more neck, and more neck, finally two skinny legs crawling on bent knees, a huge body that somehow barely squeezed through the doorframe, two more skinny legs, and finally a little tail that ended it a brown poof ball. As it stood up its head bumped the ceiling "Ouch, motherfucker, I do that every time I come down here." It sighed in a deep gravelly voice. "Now where is that meat bag that crashed in here" he looked across the room, seeing the rubble from where the guy had crashed in, but saw no sign of the intruder. "There's no way he walked out of here from all the way over there. I wonder if he disintegrated?"

"Talking Giraffe!?" Puck shouted

The massive creature whipped its head around searching for the source of the exclamation. As his eyes found puck lying on the bench beside him he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "How did you get on that bench? Didn't you come in over there?" The giraffe swung his neck around to gesture at the rubble on the other side of the room.

"Y-yeah" Puck said nervously "That floor is weird though, it has some weird gravity that almost crushed me into nothing when I tried to walk over here. I just barely made it across, then as soon as I stepped off the floor it stopped. What is a giraffe doing underground???"

"I'm not a giraffe, can't you see I have stripes and not spots?" Said the weird giraffe indignantly

"I guess I've never seen a giraffe with stripes before... but then what are you?" Puck asked

"Insolent! I am not a 'what'! Now I know you did not walk across that floor. This place is a prison I created, no one has ever made it off of that floor, so I highly doubt you're the first." The giraffe spat

"Look man, think what you want, but I'm not lying to you. I mean yeah, it was really hard, but I'm here now, and it's pretty obvious where I came in from, why should I lie about this anyway?" Puck shrugged

The weird giraffe just squinted his big eyes at Puck for a few minutes, not saying anything. Suddenly it raised its head up high, being careful not to bonk itself again. "Ok" it said, still squinting suspiciously at Puck "if you really walked across that floor, then you can take this no problem." as he finished the sentence he swung his massive head towards Puck at lightning speed.

Puck couldn't even see the hit coming after the giraffe initially threw its head in his direction, his heart leapt out of his chest into his throat, he swiftly threw his arms up to block, bent his knees, and got in a defensive stance.

POP CRRRACKKCACKACKACKACKACKACKACK

The giraffes massive neck slammed into Puck, but Puck didn't move an inch. Upon impact however, the giraffes neck popped loudly, as the impact flowed down the rest of its lengthy neck and spine it set off a chain reaction of pops. It sounded like a giant had cracked all of its knuckles in one sweep.

"Wuhhhhooohhhhhman" the giraffe slurred out a pleasure filled groan as it stumbled backwards a few steps. "Oh wow, that felt sooooo good, I'm all tingly" he then blinked his eyes a few times and looked back down to see Puck still hunkered down defending himself. "How did you do that??? How did you just block my attack?"

Puck suddenly opened his eyes and realized he wasn't dead "woah" he whispered. He didn't know how strong the giraffe was, but knew in his old body he could've never taken that hit, even in his prime younger days. "Honestly? I don't know. Ever since I died and came here I've been super strong, don't ask me how because I have no idea. I was never a weak guy while I was alive, even in my old age I always stayed active, but this has been out of this world. Are you ok?"

The weird giraffe looked at Puck with intense curiosity. "Young man, I'm taking you as my student. I'm going to train you to use that new body properly so you won't be jumping into orbit or crushing any mountains unless you want to. How does that sound?" The giraffe said proudly "it's not like you have a choice actually, but still, what do you think?" He added with an air of authority.

"Dude, you just tried to kill me and couldn't even move me an inch, why should You train Me?" Puck smirked

The giraffe suddenly reared up and kicked Puck in the forehead with one of its hooves. "Didn't I say you don't have a choice?" the giraffe slammed back down on the ground.

"Ack!" Puck was sent stumbling backwards til he fell back onto the bench. He held his head with both hands, rubbing his forehead in an attempt to make the pain go away. "Oh my god! What the hell was that for!?"

"Don't talk back to your sensei, punk!" The giraffe spat

"Sensei??? I don't even know your name!" Puck yelled

"Right, I am Gahorem."