The attendant led the group through an underground series of hallways until they eventually arrived at the entrance to the Heroes training dungeon.
The dungeon appeared to be recently polished in preparation for their arrival. The doors were massive, made of iron and had thick bolts protruding around the trim.
The attendant got in between the door and the party of Heroes, turned and bowed, "Inside this dungeon, you will encounter simulated scenarios. The enemies won't actually hurt you. You shouldn't even feel any pain, you're entirely safe in there. Take your time to get a hang of your new powers and work as a team." He tapped on the door. "Any questions?"
The group looked at each other and shrugged.
"No sir, we're ready!" Said Fred.
The attendant opened the doors and the team rushed in with excitement. Everyone except for Pebble. When Pebble tried running through the doorway, he ran fist first, then nose, then body into an invisible wall. He felt his nose crunch from the pressure and it hurt pretty badly, but the pain went away within a couple seconds.
"Ow?" Pebble questioned. The party turned around and watched Pebble as he tried to push through the wall with no success.
"What's going on here, Chief?" Bard questioned the attendant.
"Uh well, I actually don't know." He was scratching his head.
Pebble then noticed a tiny sensation that urged him to check his menu. There was a tiny notification bell. He focused on it and received a prompt.
<10 seconds>
<9 seconds>
<8 seconds>
<7 seconds>
"Oh, okay. That's what it is" Alain put his hand behind and back and summoned his axe. "Hey, don't worry about me guys, I got this! Be back soon!" Pebble shouted to his team as his voice trailed off with a Doppler effect.
Pebble was gone.
"Asshat had to choose challenge mode." Said the Snake.
—
In the middle of the night, underneath a sky full of stars, stood a massive colosseum. The architecture was impeccable, every detail on the structure could have been a Magnum Opus of masonry. The colosseum was being held by giant statues of men. The faces looked as if they were at peace with their eternal burden, but their bodies were pierced with spears and arrows. The stands were packed with the patrons, all of them citizens of heaven. They were eager to see the first double challenger participate in his christening ceremony.
The arena was lit by miniature suns, each one hovering inside black cones that directed the light onto the arena and not the crowd. In the middle of the arena there were four gods. The Throne Holder, Artia, Reeki and Glurt. The audience settled in as Glurt spoke into the microphone, announcing the arrival of the double challenger. A beam of light was projected from space and Pebble appeared to a thunderous applause.
There was a gentle thud as his feet landed in the arena, "Howdy," Pebble gave a head nod to Glurt as his axe lowered to the ground a little bit. It appeared to be much heavier here than it was a moment ago. "What's up with the gravity?" He asked as he inspected the axe.
"It's not gravity." Artia walked into view from behind Pebble. "Heroes receive a blessing whenever they are within the walls of the city that summoned them. It's fantastic for last resort defense during war and it helps you get acquainted with your new body. Now that you've left the city, you've lost the blessing and have to carry that weapon with your own strength." She smiled and waved two fingers at Pebble who, in turn, tried hard to not blush as his face turned tomato red.
"Get ready boy, you can die in this arena." Said a familiar voice. Pebble turned around to see the Throne Holder. Pebble was pretty tall, but he only made it to the god's pecs.
"Oh it's, pssshhh!" Pebble then mimicked the sound of static noise before quickly catching himself. 'Wow, I think I really need to level up my intelligence and charisma before I accidentally insult one of these walking nukes.'
The Throne Holder simply shook his head, "Don't test me. Prepare yourself. I hope you took a look at all your system functions."
"Uhh." Pebble avoided eye contact.
"You're kidding me, you better do something quickly or you're definitely dead." The Throne Holder rolled his eyes.
"JOY! I PULLED STRING. I GIVE WARCRY FOR YOU, YOU'LL LIKE!" Said the Great Mountain God Reeki as he looked at Pebble and kneeled down to pinch his cheeks. "WHO'S A CUTE LITTLE PEBBLE! YOU ARE!"
Pebble didn't react, as his eyes were twitching while he was in the menus. He quickly went to the skill tree.
'I don't know what I'm going to be up against, but I need one of these skills right now! Sprint might be good if I need to dodge things. I don't know anything about Rock Throw, but it sounds self explanatory. Grapple was too risky since he could think of many possible creatures he wouldn't want to grab. Cleave was normally a frontal swipe that could hit multiple targets. Finally, Shout would probably be a taunt or something.'
It was between Rock Throw and Cleave. Pebble figured he could already swing his axe, so he selected Rock Throw.
It looks like he was able to get a brief description of how the ability functioned, but no specifics. With Rock Throw, at least he has an answer for ranged enemies or targets he can't approach. Furthermore, the moment he unlocked the skill, he knew how to do it. It almost felt like he gained a new limb, but had perfect mastery of it right away.
Glurt beckoned for the gods to get off stage and signaled for Pebble to walk to the far end of the arena. After Pebble did as he was instructed, walls were summoned so he could no longer see the rest of the arena. Now, directly in front of him, stood a door that had unknown challenges behind it.
Glurt must have put up some sort of perception barrier, as Pebble was able to hear his voice clearly, but the words would immediately leave his memory. A few moments later, he was able to hear several roars from different beasts. Each roar was met with cheers from the audience.
The lights in the arena dimmed and heavy metal guitar music began chugging slowly. A spotlight beamed down on the door and the music picked up its pace.
"Without further ado, Let's hear it for Pebble!" Glurt's voice projected across the arena and the drums started kicking in. The collective cheers and screams from the audience made Pebble feel oddly emotional.
"I… I think this is what I've always wanted." Pebble was grinning.
Pebble pushed open the door and the drums escalated, double pedals began determining the rhythm of Pebble's heart. At the same time, Reeki reappeared right behind Pebble and shouted in such a way that all the sand in the arena started to vibrate and formed a cymatic pattern.
"GOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" Reeki's voice was deep and energized, it fit right in with the heavy metal music. Pebble felt all of his nerves settle as a new found determination began pumping through his veins. All of his hair was sticking up on end and his skin had goosebumps. The axe felt slightly lighter, but not as light as when he was in Aegis. More than anything though, right now he felt straight out fearless. His muscles began to quiver.
"AHHH!" Pebble began shouting as he ran into the first room of the arena. A knife flew right past his head, landing in the wall to his right.
Pebble immediately looked to his left and saw a familiar group of tiny goblins.
"Why am I here!" The goblin who threw the knife whined.
"That's for dropping my projector!" Glurt's voice boomed into the arena as he magically projected it.
All the gods laughed.
"Whoa, that's harsh." Pebble stopped in his tracks.
"EEE, I FRIGGIN' KNEW IT! I knew we wuz gunna catch a motha f*cking smite from one of these jackasses!" The lead goblin from before yelled. "Well nows it's too late! It's 'im or us! Bust his friggin' knee caps!" He pulled out a bat and charged towards Pebble.
"Yo, hold on, it doesn't have to be thi.. OWWW!" Pebble really didn't want to hurt these guys, they didn't seem too bad to him. However, in his moment of hesitation, the lead goblin did, in fact, take that bat and bust Pebble's friggin' knee cap.
Pebble fell to one knee and looked up in surprise as another goblin rushed in and shoved a dagger right into his gut. He felt the blade enter his body and twist underneath his ribs. The pain was intense, but Pebble didn't flinch."
The music stopped.
"I'll f*cking kill you all now." Pebble was scary calm, he didn't know if it was the adrenaline or the warcry from Reeki, but he didn't pause from any of the pain. He tightened his right triceps and swung his axe from left to right, hitting the leader goblin in the chest.
His axe went about 60% through the goblin before it stopped cutting and started dragging the goblin along with the swing. The second goblin, the one who stabbed him, got pushed back by his boss's body and ended up getting nicked by the end of the axe head, receiving a deep gash on his neck.
The moment Pebble swung his axe, the music kicked into a whole new gear.
Blood shot out of the neck wound as the goblin grabbed it with both hands and fell over. Pebble stood on his good leg and used his busted leg to hold the goblin that was attached to his axe in place as he ripped the weapon from its dead body, screaming in pain and rage as he did so. The remaining two goblins looked in horror at their fallen friends.
<+25 Exp>
<+25 Exp>
<50/100 Exp to level 2>
<+20 CP (Challenge Points)>
Pebble had no idea what CP was, but he was pretty happy to see the experience points.
He spit out some blood and looked down at his wound. He was losing blood. A lot of blood. His vision began fading in and out. A health bar appeared on the lower left of his vision and it was about 10%. He was shocked that it was so low and he still felt so fine. It was all mental, his body had no reaction to pain since he gained his new life about maybe an hour to two ago.
Pebbles took a quick glance at the dead goblins. He really didn't expect them to try to kill him, he felt naive. The thought occurred to him that maybe he hadn't grasped the reality of his own situation. He, just as they, are in a death game run by gods.
He wasn't about to hesitate again. He let his axe fall to the ground and used the handle as a crutch for his bad knee. He lifted his other leg and stomped. A rock flew up from the ground even though the ground itself was sand. The rock flew to about eye level and hovered for a moment. Pebble punched the rock as hard as he could. A cushion of air seemed to form before his hand could actually hit the rock and it shot across the room and dented the left goblin's skull.
The goblin looked over to his friend with his finger up in the air, "Ah hurrr." before succumbing to the dent, falling on the ground and gurgling. Pebble could hear the roar of the crowd's approval over the heavy metal music.
He stomped again and the other goblin covered his face and began running in a random direction.
"OH SH*T, OH SH*T, OH SH*T." Said the panicking goblin. Pebble aimed for it's left leg and sent the rock flying. He landed a little low, but successfully fractured one of the goblin's bones. The poor green bastard rolled a couple of times and landed prone. By the time he looked up, Pebble already had another rock in the air.
"Sorry." Pebble swung a mighty right hook and hit the rock hard, embedding it in the unfortunate face of the little goblin. Blood trickled down the sides of the rock, the goblin died where it laid.
<+20 CP>
<+25 Exp>
<+25 Exp>
The crowd went wild.