Elsewhere

Duke burst into the first chamber of the gauntlet, not exactly employing all 315 points of Reason but ready to get on with actual fighting. He had his enchanted tonfa ready to go and was eager to see what he would face. Would it be bosses from previous levels or levels that had been lost over time? Would it be a series of stronger and stronger dragons that he would have to slay? Would it be golems made of exotic materials and elements that taxed his strength and skill more and more with every step? His excitement practically glowed off him.

Duke skidded to a stop in front of the first challenge. Before him stood…another instructor. Duke’s excitement fell off the cliff and hit every branch and boulder on the way to splat on the floor like a cartoon character.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Really?” Duke moaned. “This is the gauntlet? I thought it was something special.”

The instructor spoke as if not hearing Duke’s words at all. “Congratulations on completing your training. Now you have entered the gauntlet and must face all ten masters in combat to truly graduate. You will succeed or you will be found unworthy. We truly hope you did not skip any steps along the way for you shall need all the skills learned from this academy to pass this trial. Now prepare yourself, for I AM YOUR FIRST CHALLENGE!”

The instructor’s shout was loud, resonating throughout the room. Duke suspected that it was intended to intimidate the “student”. Duke simply charged forward, with a tonfa strike aimed at the instructor’s head. The instructor moved to block the blow with his forearm and send it aside. Duke’s blow shattered the man’s arm and proceeded to smash through the head as well. The instructor fell to the floor limply and the door to the next chamber opened before him.

“Um, yeah. That wasn’t what I was expecting either.” Duke leaned down to wipe the mess off his tonfa with the instructor’s martial robes but stopped himself, activating CLEANSE instead. That is my single favorite Ability. It isn’t going to win me any fights, but instant clean body and clothes. You can’t beat it.

Duke proceeded to the next chamber with a smile on his face. The next chamber looked exactly like the first but was slightly larger, a 4-meter cube. The instructor stood ready for him.

“So, you have passed the first challenge of The Gauntlet. Prepare yourself for the second. You will find it much harder to defeat me.” Duke could hear the capital letters as the instructor announced The Gauntlet with reverence. Duke was not impressed.

“Sam, if it is all like this, it’s a pretty lame ending to the dungeon.” Duke received no reply.

Instead of waiting for Duke to make the first move, the instructor attacked Duke with a series of kicks aimed to ladder up his body from his shin to his knee, to his solar plexus and then head. To Duke’s level of Intuition, the kicks were completely telegraphed and slow. He could have stepped past the entire series and struck a blow of his own. Instead, he decided to experiment with it.

Duke leaned into the kicks, allowing all but the kick to the head to land. That one, he caught, clamping his hand around the instructor’s ankle. Duke chuckled as he realized that the kicks that did land didn’t have enough force to overcome his ARMOR SKIN and damage him. Nor was it able to overcome his strength and even move him back.

He looked the instructor in the eye and offered a chance. “Your kicks can’t beat even my passive defenses. I’m much faster and stronger than you. You give, or does the beatdown have to happen?” He tightened his grip on the instructor’s ankle, feeling the bones beginning to creak from the pressure.

The instructor took a discerning look at his situation and the effortless demeanor that Duke presented him with. Duke could see the moment the fire left his eyes and the instructor surrendered even before the words came out of his mouth.

“I am a poor test of your skills. I yield and warn you not to overestimate yourself in the coming chambers. The passage is open to you. You may continue.”

True to his word, the passageway to the next chamber opened and Duke released the instructor’s leg. With a nod to the defeated instructor, he proceeded to the next chamber.

Again, the room was the same, only larger, a 5-meter cube this time. The instructor gave Duke a fierce look and didn’t hesitate to attack.

He leaped into the air; his left fist cocked for a flying blow. Duke considered the attack. It was considerably faster than the previous instructor had been but still much slower than Duke’s reflexes. Duke had seen such a blow delivered in some of the MMA fights he watched from time to time and knew it was almost always a knockout blow when it actually connected. He decided to not let it connect.

Duke slid to his right, allowing the blow to pass him by and shot his own arm into position sideways over the descending fist. He followed just above the arm and clotheslined the instructor, adding his own forward rush to the blow. He connected not with the neck of the instructor, but with his chin. The blow sent the instructor flipping over backwards, completing a full rotation and landing on his feet – for a moment. The instructor then promptly collapsed to the floor and the passageway to the fourth chamber opened.

Once again, Duke strode into the chamber finding it larger still. The instructor stood ready for him but looked no different than the previous ones. With a sigh, Duke spoke, “Go ahead, say your spiel. Or would you rather get right to the part where I flatten you?”

“This student is confident. We shall see if you have learned the lessons of the academy.” With a flurry of claw-hand movements, the instructor shouted, “Mountain Tiger Style!”

Duke put his tonfa into his INVENTORY, feeling that they were just too much overkill and took a ready stance. Mountain Tiger what? Oh right, skipped that part. Oh well. I’ll just have to go with Fist to the Face or maybe Boot to the Head. Yes, that’s one’s a classic.

The instructor lunged forward, slashing at Duke. He immediately noticed that this instructor was considerably faster than the last. He was still nowhere near Duke’s league, but much faster than an average human could handle. Duke flowed into the fight, feeling the rhythm of the instructor’s attacks and spending his time evading each strike while delivering severely cushioned blows of his own, barely touching with each strike. The fight lasted a full ten minutes as Duke absorbed the positioning of every move the instructor attacked with. He committed them to memory and began to turn them back on the instructor to see how he defended against them.

“You learned this well in your training. But did you learn the advanced forms?” The instructor increased his intensity and moved to attacks that required significant flexibility and speed of motion.

Duke grinned at the increased pace of the fight, learning every move he could. These were harder to execute, but Duke kept at them until he could feel the “rightness” of his foot placement and eventually his arms and hands.

He then slowed himself down, allowing the instructor to land blows to feel how the claw strikes twisted and delivered more damage than expected. His ARMOR SKIN absorbed most of the strikes, but some actual damage passed through. Not enough to surpass his REGENERATION, but enough that it was shredding his martial robes. He continued to fight at this slower pace until the instructor went for what Duke could only imagine was intended as a deathblow.

Duke caught the instructor’s wrist, keep his clawed fingers a scant inch from Duke’s chest. Duke had read the intention in the instructor’s stance and how he pivoted his hips to put all the power he could generate in a claw aimed right for Duke’s heart.

“That wasn’t very nice.” Duke admonished the instructor. “You had better admit defeat or I’m going to have to hurt you.”

The instructor growled and attempted to pull-off a blackflip kick to Duke’s chin. Duke didn’t let go of the instructor’s wrist and used the instructor’s own arm to tangle up his attempted backflip. There was a tremendous amount of torque and force leveraged in the flip – much more than the instructor’s arm and shoulder could handle. Both gave way just before Duke let go to allow the instructor to fall heavily to the floor.

“Ready now?” Duke asked. The only response he received was the next passage opening for him. He proceeded.

The pattern held for the next chamber – it was larger than the previous and Duke was finally feeling like he had room to maneuver. There hadn’t been much call for it so far, but this was the fifth chamber. His expectations were that the difficulty would start ramping up quickly from here on out.

The one glaring difference with this chamber was that Duke saw no instructor waiting for him. His eyes narrowed and he scanned the room quickly, thinking that maybe he had missed the instructor somewhere. He saw no sign of anyone until he felt a solid blow to the back of his left knee followed by one to his right. His legs nearly buckled but he managed to flex hard enough to remain awkwardly standing.

Duke allowed his knees to bend as he spun around to extend his leg in a sweep. He neither hit nor saw anything. He was struck again from behind, this time at the base of his neck. The blow was sufficient to get past his ARMOR SKIN but his REGENERATION was healing him at more than 9,000 points a second. He knew that whomever he was fighting wasn’t in a damage class to be particularly concerned with just yet. With that in mind, Duke slowly spun around, keeping a stance that largely protected his vitals. He still couldn’t see or hear his attacker.

After several more blows from unlikely directions, Duke could feel frustration starting to boil up and decided to take another tack. He flew up to the ceiling, placing his back to the ceiling and smiling.

“Sneak up on me now, motherfucker!” Duke mocked.

His frustration elevated as he felt something strike him low in the gut…almost too low.

“OK, you asked for it, asshole!” Duke declared. LIGHTNING instantly surrounded him, crackling with blue light as it arced between his fingers, arms, legs, and occasionally to the floor. He quickly amped up the power, arcing LIGHTNING further and further away from him as he descended to the floor once again. After a full minute of filling the room with LIGHTNING, the smell of ozone started to become overwhelmed by the smell of cooked flesh. Duke released his Ability and his Mana started ticking back up.

In the corner of the room, Duke saw the charred body of what may have once been an instructor, but he was momentarily distracted by the next chamber opening up for him. When he turned back, he saw the charred corpse collapse into a pile of ash. He waited until his Mana topped off, fired off a quick CLEANSE and RESTORE and moved on to the next chamber.

This chamber was, yet again, larger than the previous and thankfully, Duke could see the instructor waiting for him. Duke smiled and gave his best “I learned this in a kung-fu movie” bow.

The instructor bowed back. “Make yourself ready.” His voice was smoother than the previous instructors and he drew a pair of butterfly swords from thin air. With a gesture to Duke, he took a ready position.

Duke smiled and grabbed his tonfa from his INVENTORY smiling at the instructor. This looked like a fight that he would enjoy, but not in how the instructor had expected. Duke took his stance and beckoned the instructor forward, still grinning like an idiot.

The instructor glided forward, his steps flowing with balance and grace as he closed the distance, his swords held ready for both attack and defense. His steps were quiet as his soft shoes muffled every step and his martial robes offered the faintest ruffle as he approached.

Duke TELEPORTED the swords to him and immediately placed them in his INVENTORY. Before the startled instructor could react, Duke launched forward, closing the distance with his FLYING Ability. Despite losing his swords, the instructor responded with a flurry of attacks as Duke arrived. This instructor’s attacks were much faster than the previous ones had been and Duke found himself having to put some effort in to keep up. He smiled at the realization.

The fight waged around the room with blows, blocks, and other moves being exchanged readily. Duke used everything he had learned so far and found his Skills to be severely lacking. Every attack he made was clearly telegraphed to the instructor, but it also went the other way as Duke was able to read the instructor’s body language on an instinctual level.

In the end, it came down to attrition. Duke just outlasted the instructor, wearing him down with accumulated damage until he eventually succumbed and collapsed. Duke caught the instructor’s falling body and laid him down as the next chamber opened before him. He gave the instructor a quick salute and was on his way, ready for the seventh chamber.