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After stepping into the Pit, the portcullis closes behind me and after a few steps, I stand before a gate with a sign on top of it that says, "Trial 1: Gauntlet of the Swift". And beside the gate was a wooden board with the challenge carved into it.
"Objective: By any means necessary, obtain the three keys to open the door to the next trial."
Sounds simple enough, let's see what we are dealing with. I proceeded to push open the wooden gate to take a look inside the first trial room.
It looked like a normal castle hall with pillars that did not meet the ceiling due to there being no ceiling, the audience needed some way to see me after all. At first glance of the huge room, I could see a wooden door with three big keyholes along one side of the door, and as I zoomed out of what was most likely my way to the next trial, I noticed what was most likely the three keys mentioned in the objective.
The first and most obvious key was lying on a pedestal right in the middle of the room, and I swear they may have installed glow stones somewhere around to direct light onto the pedestal because it is somehow more illuminated than the surrounding that is bathed in the morning sun.
The next key was in a small alcove on the right wall, but it was around four meters up, and the last key was tied to a ribbon around the neck of a clearly artificial bird that was the size of a parrot that was perched on a banner pole connected to one of the pillars… is that bird looking at me, if that bird is what I think it is, that is going to be a pain in the ass.
But that was for later, let's start with the first and most obvious target, the pedestal key, I took a step forward and felt the stone tile I stepped on press into the ground, and heard a metal tick, a split second later, I hear more mechanical sounds from my both sides of me and caught movement in my peripheral vision, on instinct more than anything, I threw myself backward through the door I came in from as rows of bolts crisscrossed where I was standing.
"Well fuck me, right off the bat, huh." I guess this is how my turn came so fast despite the number of people before me, I wonder what other nasty surprises they got for me.
Now that I know they are not playing around, I suppose I should respond in kind, I activate my aura and leap into the room, eating up a few meters with every leap toward the pedestal. As I took my third leap I felt the sensation of walking face first into a thread of spider web, but instead of the irritating feeling on my face, I felt like my body interrupted a thread of mana.
The moment that happened, what I thought were just intrinsic ribbed patterns running vertically along the pillar, dislodged and revealed themselves to be stone tentacles, and if the bird was following my movement was any indicator, I think it is pretty safe to say this whole room is full of golems.
As the tentacles reached for me while I was in midair, I swung my spear to knock away the stone tentacle, but instead of knocking the tentacle away and continuing my advance, the clash killed my momentum, which come to think of it, was to be expected. I was hitting an object that was connected to another huge grounded object, while I was a midair 8-year-old with the body of a 12-year-old. Aura or not, I was destined to lose the clash and was thrown backward.
I flipped and landed on my feet before running around the pillars as the tentacles closed in on my position, my only saving grace was that these tentacles were not as fast as I was, so I was able to close in on the pedestal for a few steps before I had to fend off the tentacles, but now that I was properly grounded, I had a lot more leverage to swat the tentacles away, it was quite fun, like the awareness training I did in my previous life where I strung up some sticks around me and hit them as they swing around to hit me. But this is my first time using a spear to do it.
As I battled my way closer to the key, I occasionally tripped a trap and had to dodge it, but it was manageable. When I grabbed the key, some Indiana Jones shit happened as the pedestal sank into the ground and I noticed the tentacles started picking up small but noticeable speed.
It was then that I put it together, this was the Gauntlet of the Swift, if I was playing this right, I should have been running around and grabbing the keys as fast as I could, but here I am, being a dumbass, and fighting tentacles that I imagine has less than honorable intentions upon my person.
I quickly reorientated myself to my next target, the alcove, and performed a wide sweep of my spear, knocking away all the nearby tentacles before booking it for the alcove. After dodging a few tentacles and traps, I was soon close to the wall beneath the alcove, but instead of slowing down, I sped up and used my momentum to run up the wall.
I got around three meters up before I lost momentum, so I covered my spear with aura and stabbed it into the wall, pulled myself up to stand on my spear, and snatched the key. And just like the podium, a pressure plate that fit so seamlessly that I did not see, sunk into the alcove.
The moment that happened, hidden doors from both sides of the door to the next trial opened up to deposit two man-sized golems that were holding spears, and once the hidden doors closed behind the golems, the golems' ruby eyes lit up with magic, scanned the area until they locked on me, and advanced towards me at a slow jog speed, "Shit. I got no time for this."
I looked at the last key that was around the neck of the bird golem that was still staring at me. I grabbed my spear, braced my legs against the wall while aiming myself at the bird, and pushed off the wall with all my strength, pulling my spear along for the ride.
As I flew toward the bird, my aura-powered kickoff left behind a large spiderwebbed crack, but just as I predicted, the moment I left the wall, the bird flew toward another pillar, and I was met with reaching tentacles.
I batted away some of the tentacles and used others as stepping stones until I got to the same perch the bird was previously resting on. I then raised my hand and pointed at the bird to send an Earth Bullet, but the moment mana gathered in my hand to cast the spell, the fucking bird flew behind the pillar.
Living or not, I am going to take great pleasure in taking that bird apart, but first, I have to find some way to hit it, and I think I may have an idea of how to do just that.
I spun up a 3rd circle Fireball spell and shot it just shy of the pillar, but at the height of where the bird was, as for why I was missing on purpose, that was because I was going to use the blast impact of the Fireball to knock that fucker out of cover.
I was not expecting to destroy the bird golem, but the spell should have enough oomph to knock it around.
When my Fireball just cleared the pillar, I purposely destabilized the spell and set it off. This sent the bird golem flying off into a wall and then to the ground, where I pounced on it from above and stabbed it center mass.
I grabbed the last key and was ready to run for the door, but I noticed that the tentacle golems ceased their wriggling toward me, and man-sized golems started making their way back to their hidden door.
I guess I cleared the first trial then.