Chapter 1290 Chapter 1290 Brawl with Burgandy
--- Green ---
A quick question later and Green noticed a flash behind her. Whipping around, Green saw Burgandy returning to the playing field. Green leapt after her, dagger flashing out. Burgandy countered by slapping Green's arm away as they danced around the platform. It was rather difficult to fight, the platform was designed for one person and while both fae were on the smaller side, there still wasn't enough space for a proper duel.
Green tried to shove Burgandy off the side, but Burgandy countered by catching Green's hand and keeping herself upright that way. The duel continued as Green asked, "What took you so long? Couldn't figure out the puzzle?"
"That blasted thing was basically mocking me! I don't even know if I got timed out or if I technically 'won' because I shattered all the glass by hurling it at the floor," yelled Burgandy.
Green winced, feeling her ears ringing from the retort. *Probably throwing them on the floor. Though that interpretation implies the challenges that teleport you away don't have a timer on them like the questions.* "I just empty the water onto the floor as soon as I saw it," said Green with a shrug.
"What?" asked Burgandy stunned. She hadn't actually believed smashing the glass had worked, and was simply assuming it was a convenient matter of timing. Her stunned expression was easy to read, and a massive opening so Green shoulder checked the other fae sending her flying off the edge. "Fuck!" yelled Burgandy as she threw a rude gesture towards Green before vanishing.
Green was pleased with herself for exactly one second. After that second she adjusted her footing and remember the whole point of picking a fight had been to dry out her clothes. Something that she'd failed to do spectacularly. "Ah… shit," grumbled Green as she looked over the edge at the spot Burgandy was still falling.
Green let out a long sigh and turned back to the path ahead. Nothing to do about it now. Nell was pulling ahead and Carl had managed to just barely pass her as well. Green felt like jumping over to Carl and attacking him to relieve some of her anger, but it was a fleeting thought. Doing something like that was clearly a bad idea. Fighting had been a bad idea to start with. This was probably karma or something.
Green sighed and jumped to the next platform. It was an easy question about arrow construction that she answered without thinking. *Hmm… that seems oddly specific. So did the healing question now that my mind is wandering. Are these questions all ones that our team can answer?*
Green didn't know, and while she was considering it, she was teleported away to a long but thin room with a sign that read 'run over the hot coals' next to… a long line of hot coals. Green grinned at the chance to dry her clothes out for a bit and started to run across the coals, not worrying about the heat through her boots.
It was going well… too well. It was at the halfway point that Green realised these coals weren't anywhere close to 'hot' at all. In fact, she wasn't entirely sure why they were red. Her boots weren't drying, her clothes weren't drying. Heck, Green would almost swear she could feel a cool breeze coming from somewhere.
Just as she was thinking that perhaps she'd been duped and run across the wrong set of coals she hit the end of the room and got teleported away. Green paused and grumbled, "What the fuck was the point in that! The coals weren't even hot!" Grumbling Green jumped forward a few more times as she checked out the competitors.
Carl was still roughly in line with her, Nell was ahead and Burgandy… Green glanced back to check and couldn't see the other fae. *Must've failed to stay on track. Not that I really think I could manage it either.* Green shrugged and leapt forward again. This time the question was asking for the names of several plants that around oak trees. Luckily, this was a rather long list, and Green knew enough of them to clear the question with ease.
Things continued like this for a while and Green found herself in a good rhythm. Jump, wait a split second, stop if there was a question or jump forward again if there wasn't. The floating platforms she was standing on did seem to be entering a bit of a dip though. Every platform was lower then the last. Green wasn't sure if she should start making her way to the edges or not.
You see, the platforms up ahead continued to slowly for another twenty jumps or so, before you hit a metaphorical wall and then needed to jump up a few stray platforms to return to the original height. For Green, this wasn't a major concern, while they were quite spread out and continually moving… Green intended to bypass them all and just use her boots to get passed the obstacle. The problem was she would likely need to land on at least one platform halfway up or more, as it was quite the distance.
With the risk in mind, Green was debating if it would be better to stick to the sides. They didn't go downwards at all but they also only contained on platform nearby. So you'd have to jump forward and accept the challenges as they came. If any of them turned out turned out to be difficult then you'd have quite a few problems on your hands.
Carl seemed to be taking that route, content not to do any extreme platforming, while Nell was charging forward, and getting rather lucky. Burnice was… Green glanced backwards and saw that Burgandy was catching up to her, while Burnice was almost to the checkpoint she'd been aiming for this entire time. Green almost wanted to say 'good for Burnice' but Green still wasn't sure what was going on there.
Her question was about to be answered. Burnice stopped on the platform as it flashed gold for a moment, cementing it as a checkpoint. Then she started to do odd movements with her hands and feet. Sort of like a dance, but vaguely familiar to Green in a way she couldn't quite place. Burnice was moving her hands around in big sweeping motions while her feet shifted ever so slightly with each movement. Green knew she should be working on the way ahead, but she was drawn to this display for some reason and couldn't tear her eyes away.
Then she noticed the cloak Burnice was wearing starting to flutter in the wind and at all clicked. *She's doing some big wind spell, or perhaps a big wind enchantment? What's she doing with it though?* The dance seemed to reach a conclusion when Burnice clapped her hands together, and slid them apart right at the last second.
Just as the motions were finished a massive cone of wind enveloped Burnice launching her forward and over the course. It all clicked together. Burnice was using the extra height as a way to get over a large section of the obstacle course. She was dropping altitude, slowly, but still surely. Whatever this move was, it certainly took a tonne of mana. Green almost wanted to start burning her own to leap over a platform or two, but Green knew it wasn't really time. She didn't have the mana to waste it when the end wasn't in sight.
Still, with her curiosity satisfied Green resumed her trek onwards. A question about safe drinking water was answered, as was a much simpler math question. It was still a touch difficult, 2x4x(6+3/2)+125/4 but it was just a matter of working through it. Green was quite happy she recognised all the symbols this time. She'd thought herself massively behind on her studies.
When a teleportation platform activated Green was concerned for a second… but then the sign told her to hit a bullseye on a distant target with the provide bow. It didn't even take her thirty seconds to make the shot. Without any wind, and clear distance markers across the entire field, it was rather easy. Green did wonder for a moment how someone else would've been able to complete it. Sure the shot was easy for her, not so much everyone else.
Green was neglecting to take into account that the sign hadn't specified any distance they needed to make the shot from. It was perfectly acceptable to walk right up to the target. The only rule was you needed to use the bow. Didn't even say anything about an arrow. Someone could just walk up and shove the tip of the bow into the target if they wanted. Green would consider something like that sacrilege, but what she didn't know, she couldn't complain about.
When Green got back to the course, it was only a few jumps before 'the wall'. A quick run up after waiting for a platform to be in the right place, and it was no trouble to climb the wall. Just two boosts to the top. Though… the finish line was still missing. That was becoming a larger concern as time went on. Where was it?
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺