Teambuilding Activities

  Challenge! This is a severe Agility Challenge! The goal of this Challenge is to complete an obstacle course within the given time! Rewards will be upgraded for speed of completion.

  Reward: A Class-Specific Artifact

  Right, simple enough. The thought of ‘severe’ agility challenges after how impossible the ‘moderate’ one was kind of scares me, but turning off gravity has to have some kind of—

  Challenge upgraded! As you have entered this Challenge with a party, this Challenge has been upgraded from severe to extreme! All Class-specific powers will be disabled for the duration of this Challenge. That includes Unique powers, cheating powers, powers that allow one to circumvent obstacle courses, powers that allow for any boost to strength, speed, or dexterity, and powers that allow one to lower their weight or change the course of gravity. Competitors must complete this Challenge on the merit of their Strength, Agility, and Toughness scores, however pathetically miniscule and significantly below average they may be.

  Addendum! Heh. Heh. Heh. Good luck, insect.

  I hardly have time to register before the ground beneath us begins to shift, pieces of it rising, others falling, an obstacle course from hell created out of nothing before our eyes. Before the course can finish forming, I wave the others close.

  “Zara, here,” I say, pulling the magical thread from my leg and offering it to her. She accepts it, looking bewildered. “Burl.” I give him the token for claiming supplies at the Haven. “Three.” I offer him the bauble, which he takes and balances absently on his stomach.

  “What’s the plan, boss?” Burl asks eagerly. “Why’d you give us your stuff?”

  “Okay, so, I’m fucked,” I say steadily, refusing to acknowledge the pit of despair opening in my gut. “Not gonna lie, my physical attributes are pretty shit. This is probably going to be almost impossible anyway, considering it got upgraded to extreme, so you guys need to work together if you want to live. I’ve seen each of you move; you can do this. Help each other, and win, damn it.”

  The three of them stare at me in silence as flashes of white light begin to flicker in the course, things being transported in from outside the physical state of the game. Kora, uncharacteristically, remains silent. Perhaps, finally, she agrees with me.

  “Twig…” Threenut says, his face suddenly unreadable. But then again, how was it ever? How did I ever think I was reading him correctly? I’ve probably been wildly wrong about what he, and all of them, feel. “Did ye feel the touch of lightning in your youth?”

  “What?” I ask, confused.

  “To have such twisted thoughts, something must have stunted ye early.”

  “No, seriously, guys, my Strength is a 2…”

  “Burl,” Zara says, ignoring me. The thread disappears somewhere in her carapace, leaving her slender limbs free. “Do you have the strength to lift her?”

  “Easy,” the Cobald says, spitting into his suddenly empty hands. “Between me and little man, we’ve got this.”

  “My silk can hold the weight of any two of us,” she says. “Maybe three, should the Weave will it. Trust in its strength.”

  “Got it.”

  “Aye.”

  The three of them turn to study the obstacle course building itself in front of us. Cliffs, towers, swinging vines, blades… is that a fucking laser?

  “Uh, guys?” I ask. “What’s going on?”

  “They’ve decided to do their best to save you, Competitor.” Kora sounds as shocked as I feel. Her will hardens, tangibly somehow, and I feel her press into my mind. The despair doesn’t abate, but I feel it less, and I can think again. “They may well die for this mistake. It is our duty to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  I mean, calling it a mistake seems a bit harsh…

  “Competitor.”

  Right.

  A narrow corridor of thorns forms in front of us, a barrier of crimson blocking the way forward. I force my eyes to the obstacles. God, that ramp looks wicked. And that jump is patently impossible for me without my power. And is that a pool of lava? Seriously? I don’t know how much of my companions' physicality comes from soul energy, but I hope it’s practically none, or we’re screwed.

  A timer in crystal blue appears in the corner of my vision. Five minutes. Most likely the last five minutes I have to live.

  And no, I’m not being a doomer, Kora. I’ll do my best.

  “Any moment in this Tournament could have been your last, Competitor. A timer merely makes it concrete.”

  I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that. The crimson barrier pulses in a rhythmic cadence, a warning, no doubt, that the Challenge is about to begin. The others are still strategizing, murmuring about obstacles that will be the most difficult, working the problem. Even without me this would be hard, but they aren’t flinching.

  “You can still go,” I say, trying to keep my voice firm. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “We know,” Zara says, half of her eyes turning to me. A piece of chitin on her face lifts. Is that a smile? “Do not tempt us.”

  The barrier falls.

  4:59. 4:58.

  “Come, twig,” Threenut shouts, leading the way.

  Zara darts in behind him, dropping down to crawl for the first time like the spider she appears to be. Burl grabs my hand and tugs me onto the path. Two steps in, pain rips into my shoulder. I barely have time to register the thorn before Burl yanks me out of its embrace. Blood, warm and free, waters the path. The agony flares brighter, Psychic Telos stitching my shoulder closed. I guess Boons aren’t being blocked.

  My soul energy reads 187/198.

  More fire burns across my back as another whipping thorn slices past. I stagger, stumble. Burl keeps me upright. The pain peaks and then disappears.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  182/198.

  An entirely different countdown.

  We break out of the thorny hedge. A slope soars into the sky, almost vertical. Gray, but green, some kind of weird stone. Threenut is already near the top. Zara is doing something halfway up, her many legs blurring in a dizzying pattern. Burl drags me to the base of the cliff.

  “There’s no way,” I gasp, my lungs already dragging at the air. “Go, Burl.”

  “Nah,” he says, reaching out to empty air. His scaled hands close on nothing, to no effect.

  “We can’t use Skills in this…”

  I trail off as his grip tightens on something. His arm flexes, and he turns to me with a wild grin.

  “Come on, Boss,” he says. “Up ya go.”

  My eyes lock in, finally, on a slender filament, an impossibly-thin strand of silk. The bottom of it is set up like a noose. A noose, or a stirrup… Not allowing myself to hesitate, I shove my foot into the silk and reach up to grab onto the strand. I jerk into motion instantly, practically flying up the cliff face.

  I glance up. Shit. An outcropping juts out along my path. My shoulder crunches into the stone. The impact spins me about. Disoriented, I hold onto the pain to focus, the line of fire Zara’s silk cuts into my fingers, the flare of Psychic Telos repairing my—

  My vision goes black. My thoughts scatter.

  Hold on. Hold on.

  “Hold on!”

  My mind kicks back into gear. Wetness paints the back of my neck. My side scrapes against the stone, still rising. I must have hit my head. Hard. Somehow, miraculously, I didn’t fall, though I’m pretty sure I lost consciousness.

  My skull broke.

  At least it’s back together now.

  I sob a laugh at the impossible thought, finally sliding over the edge of the cliff.

  Threenut is braced, his small hands wrapped in silk, green blood oozing from between his fingers. Apparently, his strength does not derive from Skills at all. The silk, thin enough to cut and strong as steel, ruined the Otachai’s hands. To save me.

  4:14.

  143/198.

  We’ve barely begun. God. I know it is only with Kora’s help that I shove aside the despair and find my feet. We’re high enough that I can see the rest of the course. Impossible leaps, dodging lasers, traversing fire. This is agony incarnate, a course even those mud run psychopaths would balk at. I bite my lip, my chest trembling.

  “Onward, twig,” Threenut mutters, shaking out fingers cut nearly to the bone. “And don’t ye dare think of bending for the wind.”

  I give him a nod, all I can manage. Zara is already halfway down the next slope, pausing to attach bits of silk to treacherous spots. Burl levers himself over the edge of the cliff, his face changed from bronze to a washed-out rust. The climb wasn’t a cakewalk for him, either. Zara turns at the next obstacle, flames scorching the air behind her. Her voice is faint, but noticeable, its hissing gravel carrying over the roar.

  “Hurry, you fools!”

  The slope passes in a blur. I don’t fall, somehow. My vision narrows to a tunnel.

  Fire sears my skin. Burl pats out my hair.

  3:27.

  127/198.

  Threenut snaps commands to stop or go or duck, but spinning saws rip through my shoulder and my calf anyway.

  3:04.

  98/198.

  A narrow, near-invisible bridge stretches over shimmering heat. Zara’s web. My lungs burn as I crawl. My hands bleed and boil.

  2:14.

  74/198.

  No telling which will reach zero first. My legs are pools of fire. My heart beats a frantic cadence. My lungs are filled with embers.

  And, for all my pain, all my agony, all my determination…

  We aren’t fast enough.

  A slope of crumbling rock, gentler this time aside from the boulders flashing into existence and rolling downhill to crush us, leads us up to another vantage. We’re maybe halfway to the end. Far below our feet, a beautiful shimmering chest glows invitingly on an island of stone surrounded on all sides with a broad lake of bubbling lava. I don’t look at the chest long enough for Identification to activate. I don’t want to waste my few remaining seconds reading about something that can never be.

  There are too many trials to come, a dozen obstacles I couldn’t conquer at my best, let alone after what I’ve already endured.

  1:28.

  42/198.

  “It was a good try,” I whisper, my voice sounding almost like Zara’s. “Now go.”

  “Twig…”

  “Boss…”

  “She’s right,” Zara says, the carapace on her face shifting. Somehow, I know her expression is meant to show sympathy. “As much as I hate to say it, we will all die if we continue as we are.”

  “Thank you, guys. For trying.” I glance at each of them, then motion with one deadened arm. Burl looks ashamed, his little snout pointed at the ground. Threenut’s giant green eyes shine with unshed tears. Or sap, who knows if the little tree man can cry. “Go, for real this time. No point in all of us dying.”

  Zara makes a complicated gesture with her arms, alien and indecipherable, then turns and scuttles off towards the next obstacle. I’ll take it as a sign of respect. Threenut and Burl hesitate, but I can see it is merely that. A hesitation. Their eyes may be on me, but their chests are already pointed down the path. Sighing, I sit on the edge of the cliff, letting my aching legs dangle over open air.

  “Go. Shoo. Save yourselves.” I wave them away. “But you better fucking win, like I told you before. Stick together. Make it to the end. I hope one of you gets to save your people.”

  “I’ll do my best, boss,” Burl says, planting a fist to his chest like some kind of Roman soldier saluting his superior. “This ain’t how I wanted my debt canceled.”

  Man, I’m glad I didn’t grow up a Cobald. I worked at an Applebees for a month in the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. A long month. If I ever had to salute my manager like that, I might have thrown myself into oncoming traffic. Fuck you, Deb, wherever you are.

  “The debt’s done,” I say, waving my hand weakly. “You did your best. Go.”

  “T’was an honor, twig. Sam.” Threenut darts up to place a dirty, bloody hand on my shoulder. I give his hand a pat and then nudge him with my shoulder towards the waiting path.

  “Thanks, Three. Keep fighting, so all your future seedlings can grow up tall and strong.”

  “Aye, I will.” He pauses, then offers one last thing over his shoulder. “May the Tree welcome ye.”

  Fat chance of that. Part of me wants to scream and rage at the sky, knowing that the Seventh is probably watching gleefully from… somewhere. But I won’t give Dickhead the satisfaction. Pricks like him revel in that shit. That he made a decent guy like Threenut doesn’t make even the remotest sense.

  “Alone again,” I say, sighing. I let my eyes drift to the lilac horizon, ignoring, for the moment, the immediacy of my death. “I tried.”

  “You did, Competitor. A valiant effort. I am… sorry, that this is how your tale ends. Of all the Competitors I’ve Mentored, you may not have had the best chance of victory. You, honestly, had the least.” Complimentary as ever. “Yet I think I will remember this time, short as it was. Vividly.”

  Thanks, Kora. That was the nicest way anyone has ever called me weak and weird.

  0:31.

  Sighing, I lean over and pick up a loose pebble from the crumbling slope. Feeling like a child wondering how deep a hole goes, I toss the rock over the edge. My eyes follow it as it falls, spinning end over end. It falls, and falls, and falls, then disappears with a silent plop into the lava surrounding the goal. Damn, I almost hit the little island. It really is almost right below us. I have to look at it between my dangling feet.

  My heart seizes in my chest.

  My magically slippered feet.

  0:16.

  I scramble up, backing away from the edge. How hard do I jump? Too much or too little and I’m deep diving into lava. Just enough, and I have to trust a magical set of lacy slippers to prevent every bone in my body from shattering beyond—

  “Twelve be with you.”

  They can fuck themselves.

  Screaming, I take two running steps and launch myself into the open air.

  I have the briefest, frozen instant for my impossible Perception to take in the world. An iron red glow washes everything crimson. The wind is loud and silent both at once. Arcs of molten lava flare in twisting doorways to alien lands.

  And, far below my feet, three small figures cross the flaming lake on narrow stepping stones leading to the goal. When my scream reaches them, their heads snap upwards, shock in all its exotic forms etched on their faces.

  Gravity reasserts itself. This time, there’s nothing I can do to alter it. The island rushes towards my feet. I push what power I can into the slippers. They begin to glow the pure white of a cloudless moon.

  I hope it’s enough. If it isn’t, well. I hope at least that my friends remember the bravery of this leap, and not its end.

  Light, overwhelming and white.

  Light.