Chapter 1240 Chapter 1240 First Jump
Competitors: Gareth, Nabras, Willow, Mauve, Cyan
---- Gareth ----
Gareth peered over the edge at the course he was about to fall through and felt mixed emotions. The first jump seemed to be a straight shot. The rings were all lined up perfectly from top to bottom… with exactly one exception. About halfway through there was exactly one ring off to the side. Just, all by its lonesome.
Right, so I see the challenge here. You have to choose if it's worth going for that ring off to the side or not. It's going to cost my half of my mana just to make the attempt, and that's just for a single ring. If I need my full mana pool next round to catch two or more rings then I'm shit outta luck.
The counterpoint to that, is any mana I'm 'not regenerating' is essentially a sunk cost as well. I doubt I can regenerate my mana completely between rounds, so it's still a risk… but I might be best paying the mana now so I can restore some of it for later. Then again… maybe not? It's a gamble either way.
"Thyme… is it possible to see the next course ahead of time?" asked Gareth.
"Afraid not my dear Gareth. You can only see what's immediately ahead of you," answered Thyme with a grin. The fact that Thyme's little bowtie started spinning was probably not a coincidence.
"Of course, why would I think otherwise," said Gareth with a sigh as he looked back at the drop. *So what's the choice? Do I take the risk? I… I think so. Might as well ensure I have a 'perfect' run to start off with. If it turns out I needed the mana later then that's that.* "Here I go!"
Gareth jumped off and angled himself quickly to streamline his body as much as possible, limiting surface area to reduce his drag. He was rocketing down through ring after ring and keeping himself as still as possible. He hadn't quite hit the centre with his jump, but with the rings in this configuration, moving around wasn't worth the loss of speed.
As he fell, Gareth kept an eye on the outlier ring without readying his mana or moving his hands just yet. As soon as he cleared the ring just prior to the one of to the side, Gareth flipped his hand around and fired. Wincing as his arm kicked into the side of his head. Still, it was enough to get him over the ring.
Gareth didn't waste time worrying abut the pain, he just waited until the ring flashed, registering his passing, before activating his second glove and sending him back to the main column. Once again, it hurt, but he could deal with it. Especially when all he had to do was keep going straight all the way down to the bottom.
When Gareth cleared the final ring, Thyme said "Done. That's a time of two minutes, and fifty-three seconds, no penalties involved. Good show," *Is it? I guess we'll just have to see…* With that announcement Gareth dropped down onto his back and started to regulate his breathing and recover as much mana as he could.
---- Nabras ----
Nabras was hoping that nobody could notice his pounding heart. Apparently, diving straight off the platform without properly preparing himself had been a bad idea the first time around and now the thought of sending himself through it a second time was causing no shortage of anxiety.
*Get it together man. It's just a short fall. Gareth was only falling for three minutes. You can survive that. You've fought monsters for longer. This looked fun just ten minutes ago. Or at least, it looked completely doable. Now you just need to go through this… three times more then you're done. Heck you might even get some points out of it.*
Nabras peered over the edge to confirm the course. He'd seen the illusion of Gareth falling but that didn't really give you a great idea of the course itself. Perhaps that was a balancing act on Thyme's part. *Right, so it's a straight shot, you just need to get through the one ring on the side and back again. That should be easy. No problem. My arms can deal with that.*
Nabras sucked in a deep breath and moved to the edge. Then he through his arms forward… and leaned backwards to keep himself from going over the edge. Shit. No just… just gotta do it. Nabras rolled his arms forward, back, forward, back, making it look like it was planned before eventually managing to gather his courage enough to go for it.
Nabras' arms spun through the air as he failed to get in position quickly. He tried to straighten out, but he was already too angled, and it started to move him away from the centre of the rings. Nabras tried, and failed to correct this, starting to spin around instead. Panicking, Nabras just flattened himself out completely for a bit before pulling his whole body into a ball and then straightening out once more.
Nabras was thankful he managed to situate himself so quickly because only a few moments later he was readying his glove and launching himself off to the side. Nabras grit his teeth through the pain and managed to swing back into the line of rings properly before letting his arms hang by his sides. Not perfect form, but they were sore and he felt the extra support worth it.
With that, it was a straight shot to the final ring then he was done Thyme teleported him back and said "A respectable three minutes and eleven seconds," Nabras let out a long breath before nodding at Thyme and sitting down on the ground. He was down forty percent of his mana, but that was fine… probably.
---- Willow ----
Willow, contrary to the other contestants, sat down on the edge and looked at the rings bellow, unlike the others who chose to stand. *Right. This seems like a warmup round. Though I wonder if this is a trick of some kind. Hmm… well… even if it is I've got more than enough mana to burn for a ring here. Especially in the first round.*
Willow spent a bit of extra time looking around for any tricks or traps but there didn't seem to be any. She was determined to keep an eye out for them just in case, but it seemed straightforward for the first round at least. With a shrug, Willow just pushed herself off the edge and fell. She quickly got into a divers pose, arms out front with her hands together and sped down as quickly as she could.
When she reached the point just before the odd ring out, she flipped a hand over, while bracing it with her other arm, and let the mana flow. Willow spun rapidly as she flew over towards the ring but was able to keep her lunch down long enough to repeat the gesture and go back the other way. It even cancelled out most of her spin. Just one more flip and she was on a straight shot through to the finish.
Willow sped through the final goal and heard Thyme say, "What a show from the fastest contestant yet. Even with those arial manoeuvres she's still ended up with a very respectable two minutes and forty-seven seconds."
Willow sat down cross-legged to try to restore her mana a bit. She wasn't sure how important it was, she was only down twenty percent after all. Still, every bit of mana might count.
---- Mauve ----
Mauve wasted no time at all once she was up. Mauve took a running jump and leapt straight off the platform diving down without a care in the world. A manic grin was spread across her face as she shot downwards. Unlike every single other person so far, when she came upon the 'break' in the line of rings she didn't hesitate, she didn't prepare herself. She just kept, going, down.
By the time Mauve was passing through the final rings, she was cackling madly, her hair blowing behind her in the wind and just the biggest smile on her face. "Ooh, an interesting strategy. By far the fastest time here, Mauve managed to make it down to the bottom in only two minutes and twenty-eight seconds! Of course… that's not taking into account the penalty she received from flying directly down, so her final time is two minutes and fifty-eight seconds,"
Mauve just shrugged at that answer. Sure she was in it to wind… but damn that speed? That was a rather thrilling feeling.
---- Cyan ----
After Mauve's performance, Cyan's was rather standard. Cyan made the jump, flew through the rings, and burnt some mana to ensure that he got all of them on the way down. The only real difference was that he didn't handle the recoil well.
He wasn't properly prepared for it. His hand had smacked him right on the nose, blurring his eyesight and almost causing him to miss the 'return-trip' with the second gauntlet. He was lucky it was just a straight shot because he could hardly see through the tears.
Thyme did give him a time of three minutes flat though. Which wasn't too bad
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