Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety — Don't Cut Yourself On All These Edges
Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety — Don't Cut Yourself On All These Edges The worst part of getting into any sort of tournament-y fight, I was discovering, was the waiting.Sure, this was only my second time experiencing this, but still. Having to wait in a little room while watching sylph fill the stadium seats above wasn’t all that fun, not while waiting for stuff that was out of our control.I was mostly waiting for Augustus to return with my broom and dustpan. He applauded my choice in non-standard weapons, then refused to allow me to take anything unenchanted into the arena because that would infringe upon his honour or something.“They’ve arrived,” Amaryllis said. She was staring out the window and across the arena, eyes narrowed to see into the darkened room just like ours on the other side.I shifted over to her side and looked across too. I could just make out the three mercenaries we’d have to fight milling around. “Looks like it,” I said. “Any last-minute strategies?”“None that I can think of,” Amaryllis said. “I know you have a tendency to hoard points on occasion, and that’s fine, but now would be a good time for even a small boost in your combat ability. This one fight might very well determine the entire war.”“Right,” I said.I only had one Cinnamon Bun skill point to spend. It was meant to get my Cleaning magic up a rank, but Amaryllis was right.Congratulations! Way of the Mystic Bun is now Rank C!Way of the Mystic BunRank C — 00%You have taken your first big hop on the path of the Mystic Bun, combining devastating magic-laced physical attacks with incredible mobility. You may now expend your own mana to manipulate an enemy’s own.I blinked. What did that even mean?“I’ve upgraded the only skill I really can,” I said. “I, uh, don't know if it’ll help all that much.”“Which one?” Amaryllis asked.But before I could get her to give me some advice, the door at the back of the room opened, and Augustus stepped in. He had my broom and dustpan! “Ladies, Captain,” he said before placing the broom and dustpan to the side. “The hour is upon us now. The referee will be calling out your name as it is picked out of a hat. The hat is enchanted to prevent tampering, so no worries.”“Someone tampered with the hat before?” Amaryllis asked.“We used to use a goblet,” Augustus said. “Very dramatic, but alas, not tamper-proof. Now, there are quite a few faces out there, but, as I always suggest, just don’t pay them any mind. Do your best and I’m sure you’ll come out on top!”I nodded, then slapped the lion-faced helmet I’d picked up onto my head. It took some wiggling to get my ears to poke out from the right spots, but I managed.New Skill Acquired: Pit FightingRank: E“How do I look?” I asked.“Like some sort of hideous lion-rabbit crossbreed,” Amaryllis said.I turned my head this way and that. The helmet was acceptably snug, tight without being too tight. It did limit my range of vision a little bit, but not enough that I thought it would really impact me mid-fight.Augustus left us while I was getting my helmet on. I sighed, picked up my weapons, then put them back down. “Okay, no, before we head out, we should do buffs.”“Do you have a tea set?” Amaryllis asked.“No, but I have arms,” I said. I raised them. “Hugs?”Amaryllis made a show of being huffy, but we were just between friends, so there was no heat in the protests. Awen, on the other hand, giggled and wrapped her arms around us both to make it an even better hug.I did my best to snuggle my friends, which was hard given the helmet. Maybe if I had practised more, my hugging skill would be a bit better. I regretted not hugging people more. But that regret wouldn’t stop me from making the change I needed to become a better hugger.Augustus’s voice snapped us out of the hug, and we all glanced over to the arena where the sylph was talking up to the crowd, his voice amplified by a microphone-like device hanging from the ceiling by a long wire.“-And our first combatants for the day will be... Representing Lord Francisco Hawk... Jacob Hayer.”The door to the far room opened, and one of the sylph stepped out. He had three swords held by their middle in each hand. He shifted his shoulders as he took in the crowd, then let his wings buzz behind him. One of them wasn’t moving as much as the other. An injury?“Representing Lady Amaryllis Albatross... Lady Awen Bristlecone.”Awen ‘eeped’ and jumped on the spot. So I gave her a bonus squeeze to help with her nerves. “Kick his butt, Awen.”Awen nodded. “I’ll do my best,” she said. She looked really determined as she picked up her big shield and moved towards the door. “Ah, I kind of regret not practising a bit more,” she said.“I think I regret that too,” I said. “But we can’t worry about that now. Do your best, Awen!”Awen smiled back. “I will,” she said before stepping out into the arena. Awen glanced up for just a moment before refocusing on her opponent.Augustus gestured to either end of the arena, and Awen and Jacob moved into two squares marked out on the sandy ground. A sylph referee in a padded leather outfit stepped into the middle of the arena and raised a bright red kerchief. “Once this hits the ground, you begin. No moves that are meant to kill outright. This is a gentleman’s and gentlewomen’s duel; I’ll have no barbarism in my arena. If I call a stop, you stop, if I tell you to back off, you back off, and if I tell you to jump on one leg and sing lullabies, you’ll do that too, am I understood?”Awen and her opponent both nodded.“Good.” The referee made a show of looking around. “The arena is cleared. There is no magic in the air. Testing the magelights now.”The entire arena turned red for a moment as the lights above shut off and a bunch of red lights came on. It was bright enough that it didn’t really interfere with anyone’s vision.“If you see those lights come on again, you stop,” the referee said. He turned to Jacob. “Repeat my instructions about the lights,” he said.Jacob cleared his throat, then repeated them. The referee turned to Awen next.“Awa? Oh, um, if the lights turn red, I have to stop.”“That’s right,” the referee said. “I take my job seriously, and I expect you both to do the same. This will be an honourable fight or I’ll make it one, and no one wants that. Now, are both combatants ready?”The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.Awen and Jacob nodded, and they both shifted in their squares. Awen brought her shield up before her. It was big enough that she was almost entirely hidden behind it. I didn’t know what her plan was, but I hoped that it was good.“Dropping the kerchief now,” the referee said.The red piece of cloth fluttered in the air for just a moment before touching down on the sand.There wasn’t quite an explosive start to the fight. Awen just stepped forwards slowly and carefully, her right hand held close to her side.Jacob stepped to the side, then flung all six of the swords he was carrying into the air.Then he started to sing.It was just a single pure note at first, but it slowly turned into another, more like a dirge than a proper song, really. The interesting thing was the way the song interacted with his swords. They hung suspended in midair, shivering as if they were bells that had just been struck.“Oh, that’s neat. Neat and really not great for Awen,” I said.The song stopped for just a moment as Jacob let out a piercing whistle.Two of the swords shot forwards.Awen bent her shield, and the first sword struck it and ricocheted off to the side, stabbing into the sandy ground behind her. The second looked like it was going to smack her, but at the last moment she reached out with a bare hand and... and the sword scraped against her hand with a crystalline ringing.It sounded as if someone had just pressed a finger along the rim of a wineglass, a humming note that only stopped once the sword slid past Awen and bounced off the ground behind her. The sword flipped, and rose back up as Jacob returned to humming.“She has a gauntlet,” Amaryllis observed.I squinted at Awen, and could make out a glove covering her entire hand all the way down her elbow. It was glass, shaped and curved and growing to cover her more and more every moment, with what looked like complicated joints around the fingers and the bend of her elbow.Was she making magical glass armour for herself on the spot? That was so cool!“Go Awen! You’re awesome!” I cheered.Awen started to move forwards again while Jacob walked in a wide circle to reposition himself. His first two blows had been more like testing attacks than anything else, it seemed.Then Awen swung her arm around her shield, and a dozen little things caught the air as they scattered on the ground before Jacob.The mercenary paused, eyes narrowing. He continued to sing even as he knelt down and pinched something off the ground. A caltrop, made of four bits of twisted glass.“Well, she’s not holding back,” Amaryllis said.Awen flung more caltrops around her shield, then even more of them, most disappearing into the sand so that they were nearly impossible to make out.Jacob whistled, and a sword shot towards Awen. She carefully stepped to the side and battered it out of the way with her shield, but a second whistle sent another sword flying towards her, then a third. Soon, Awen had to twist and crouch behind her shield while three of Jacob’s swords spun around her. They’d dart in, then back out, cutting at her shield and trying to poke her from behind.I winced. Awen was having to dodge and block a lot, while all Jacob was doing was humming his constant dirge. I was starting to make out very faint changes in pitch and tone that seemed to help the swords move, but there was no way I could figure out the pattern without a whole lot more studying. It was a neat set of skills.Awen ducked under her shield, then she flung her arm out.Instead of more caltrops, a foot-long scintillating crystal dagger shot toward Jacob's chest.His song shifted as he took a quick step back, and one of the swords near him swung around and placed itself between him and the dagger.Awen twisted her hand, and the dagger’s flight path changed in mid air. It arced around the sword and stabbed into Jacob’s armour.The blade burst into shards on impact, and it left a stub of broken glass jutting out of his armour. Not deep, but it was first blood.Jacob’s song deepened and sped up ominously. He jumped up just as one of his swords swept down and landed on the flat of the blade.“Damn,” I heard Awen say as he surfed over the ground she’d trapped.Jacob plucked a sword out of the air and landed next to Awen already swinging.She staggered back, shield imposed between herself and the mercenary to parry the swing. It was a lot heavier than the blows from the flying swords though, and it battered her arm out wide.Jacob moved in, still singing and still with his other swords flying circles around himself and Awen.One of the blades nicked her in the back, and I winced as Awen squeaked. They were circling in closer.I think we all sensed the moment that Awen started to lose steam.So, she went out with a bang.Thrusting her shield forwards, Awen rammed it into Jacob. But the mercenary was quick on his feet, and he rolled with the blow, stepping to the side as she moved past. Then he let out a long hiss, and I noticed that the shiny glass on the ground had been moving.Awen had pulled the glass closer? Maybe since he’d moved out of her trap, she moved her trap to him!It didn’t help much.Awen’s shield was shoved aside, and she only just caught his sword mid-length with her gauntleted hand.Jacob let go of it, grabbed Awen by the shirt, and with a shove and a flip, threw her up and around to crash into the sandy ground with a hard ‘oomph.’One of the flying swords came around and rested a handspan over Awen’s neck.In a flash, Awen had a gorget over her throat, then the glass continued to grow until her head was encased in a crystalline helmet. It was a bit crookedy and was obviously rushed, but it was enough that Awen was able to roll around and back to her feet even as Jacob’s swords hounded her every move.Awen was incredible, but her fight wasn’t turning out well. The more armour she added, the slower she moved and the harder Jacob hit her.He was twisting his blades to only strike with the flat side, but it was still tossing Awen around, and after the third time she landed on her back and had a sword stop above her, she stopped fighting back.Awen reached up and tore off her helmet. She glared up at the sword, then let her head fall back. “Fine, I yield,” she said.
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Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety-One — I'm Not Touching You!
Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety-One — I'm Not Touching You! Awen returned to our little waiting room after a sylph in white robes fussed over her on the edge of the ring. There was some magic used there, but Amaryllis assured me it was nothing but healing magic. Members of the Healing Sentinels swore an oath to only heal, so there was nothing to worry about.“Are you okay?” I asked anyway as soon as she was close. Then, when she slipped into hugging range, I pounced and squeezed her tight.Awen giggled, and wrapped her arms around me to return the hug. “I’m fine, Broc. Well, mostly fine.”“Mostly?” I asked as I pulled back a little.She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, mostly. I had a few more tricks I could have used in there. I shouldn’t have held back as much as I did. He was a much better fighter than I am, but I think I could have made him bleed a lot more if I just pushed myself a little harder.”“But you did great out there,” I said.Awen pulled out of the hug entirely while shaking her head. “I lost, Broccoli. I’m not going to beat myself up over it, you don’t need to worry about that.” She glanced back into the arena. “But I could have done better. I should have. I... I think I need to think a little bit about it.”I sighed, but let her pass. Amaryllis hesitated next to her, then carefully gave Awen a hug too. I couldn’t help but smile at that. It was nice seeing Amaryllis opening up, at least.“When I next write to Rose, I’ll tell her that you were spectacular out there,” Amaryllis said.“Awa! N-no!”Maybe Awen was right too. I’d been thinking of the fights as games more than anything else.“Representing Lord Francisco Hawk...” Augustus was already in the centre of the arena. “Flein Bocking!”That was the other sylph, the Hardened. I didn’t know what that class could do, and that was pretty worrisome. Plus, he was level 16. That was a good chunk ahead of me.The sylph stepped into the arena and glanced over to our side of it. He didn’t have any weapons on him that I noticed. Did that mean he was a magic user? Or something else?“Representing Lady Amaryllis Albatross... Captain Broccoli Bunch!”I paused for a moment, only moving when I felt talons and a hand touching my back. “You can do it,” Amaryllis said.“Kick his butt,” Awen suggested quite seriously.I nodded, my resolve made up, then I grabbed my broom and dustpan and moved into the arena.I came to stand across from Flein. “Heya,” I said.He nodded to me. “Greetings.”I took only one moment to glance up and around. The stadium seating was full. Nobles and a few more modestly dressed sylph, all packing in as close as they could. The only exception was a small box where I saw the princesses and Francisco looking down on us.Looking up was a distraction I couldn’t afford, so I refocused on Flein again. “Usually I’d try to make friends, Mister Flein, but I really-really have to win this, okay? So, ah, maybe we can chat after the fight? No hard feelings?”The sylph smiled. “No hard feelings, Captain Bunch,” he said.The referee glanced at us both, then started an abridged version of the speech he’d given before the last fight.“Uh, I have a question,” I said when he was nearing the end.“Yes?” the referee asked.“Is there an out of bounds?”He nodded. “Going too far up, above the level of the first row of seats, will activate a barrier. Leaving the arena through the side-doors is forbidden as well, though those will remain closed for the duration of the fight.”“Alright, thank you,” I said.“Good.” The referee made a show of looking around. “The arena is cleared. There is no magic in the air. Testing the magelights now.”I blinked as the arena turned red. It made the open space a whole lot more sinister for a moment.“If you see those lights come on again, you stop,” the referee said. He turned to me. “Repeat my instructions about the lights,” he said.“If the lights turn red, I have to stop,” I said.He nodded, then turned to Flein who repeated the instructions without looking away from me.I bounced on the spot. I should have stretched more, I realized.“Are both combatants ready?”We nodded. I shifted my grip on my broom and turned just a bit so that I was side-on to Flein in case he launched a spell at me. I had a plan forming in the back of my head already. I adjusted my gladiator’s helmet one last time.“Dropping the kerchief now,” the referee said.The handkerchief fluttered down and landed gently onto the sand.That sand instantly shifted up and started to move of its own volition.Cleaning magic gathered on my broom as I stepped to the side and flicked it out, firing a bright cleansing bolt toward Flein.Could I negate his sand control? If so, this would be an easy win!I wasn’t so lucky.Flein ducked to the side, then spun around on the spot.The sand around him leapt up from the ground and clung to him, two long tendrils formed past his arms and snapped towards me with twin cracks.I hopped to the side, narrowly avoiding the two sandy whips. They rammed into the arena wall behind where I had been standing with two echoing thumps. That... would have hurt.Flein wasn’t going to give me any time to come up with a plan. He spun around and two more whips swung out at me, one slicing the air horizontally, the other snaking out right at my face.I jumped to the side, ears back to keep them safe, and rolled over the horizontal strike while the other cracked at empty air.I landed in a roll and bounced back to my feet. I needed to react! Pushing my mana out, I created a burst of cleaning magic as another pair of whips approached.They kept coming, only a small portion shimmering away. The sand itself wasn’t something that was dirty, it was just plain sand.One of the whips slashed past my side and I hissed as it grated open a thin streak on my arm.I couldn’t stand still.Flein started to walk towards the middle of the arena, arms still spinning around to form new whips. He was going to cut the distance and give me no time to react.I flung a large fireball at him while backing up, then, in the pause where he ducked out of the way, I brought my foot back and kicked forwards. The end of my shoes met my dustpan in mid-air, and Flein cursed as he redirected his whips to bat it out of the air.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.The dustpan went sailing far out of reach, and before he could reset, I darted toward the wall, sprinting all out with Stamina coursing through my legs. A whip snapped behind me a moment before I leapt up and landed feet-first on the wall.My legs sprung out, and I shot across the arena on a straight path for Flein, broom held wooden-end out towards the sylph.Flein flung his arm out towards me, a fresh whip forming in the air.So I kicked out with one leg, a fireball streaking out of the tip of my foot on a straight path for his arm.He rolled to the side, but in doing so his newest whips fell apart into so much sand.I was close!I landed, rolled, scrapped across the ground, then shot out in the opposite direction right towards Flein who was recovering from his own dodge.He swung his arm out toward me, and half a dozen ropey tendrils of sand formed in the air between us. They weren’t moving whip-fast, but there would be no dodging them.So I swung my broom at them. The haft glowed with cleaning magic as I put my Makeshift Weapons Proficiency to work. The thin wood smacked though the sand, and the magic glue on it wrapped around Flein’s, disrupting the shapes where it hit them and turning the ropes into so much loose sand in the air.Flein didn’t shy away from my charge. He ran right up to me and, abandoning his ranged strikes, threw a punch at my head.I ducked out of the way of his punch, then smacked him in the side with my broom.The broom made a nice ‘thawp’ sound, and little else.His clothes and skin were covered in a layer of caked-on sand.I side-stepped another punch, then started to back away as Flein kept swinging at me. He had a simple stance, legs a bit apart, arms cocked before him, hips swaying to give his punches more force. Like a boxer. But boxers didn’t have fists enclosed in rocky lumps of hard-packed sand.I blasted him with fireballs, but that didn’t seem to do anything at all.Flein ducked in towards me and swung an uppercut towards my chin. It was only the fact that I was taller than him that let me bend back and out of the way of the blow, but then he was right up in front of me, and he brought a knee up to smack me in the thigh.I stumbled back, making some space between us.I was losing.He had the advantage at range. He was tougher up close, and hit harder too. All I had was speed and a broom. I was faster, more agile too, but no amount of cartwheels would help here.I had to try something else. Fire didn’t work. It wasn’t hot or hard-hitting enough. Cleaning wasn’t doing anything other than to wash his sand out. My broom with Makeshift Weapons Proficiency could disrupt his whips and sand but not much else.Way of the Mystic Bun...I nodded to myself. That could be a solution, maybe, but I’d need to get in close.I spun my broom around, holding it by the haft while the bristles were interposed between Flein and I.When he took his next swing, I pushed it aside with the broom. I didn’t just push my mana though my broom though, I pushed it into him.There was a weird moment there, like touching a carpet a moment after shuffling on it with big wooly slippers. Not a shock, but the impression that a shock was due.Nothing happened except that I shoved the punch aside enough to dodge it. But I had felt something.My new level in Way of the Mystic Bun allowed me to control an opponent’s mana, but it didn’t come with an instruction manual.Flein swung his free hand around, and I squeaked as a rope of sand snaked out and almost caught me around the throat. My face almost met his rising knee eye-first as he jumped up into a kick.Acting on reflex, I placed a hand on his knee and pushed it back. At the moment the contact was made, I felt his magic moving. It wasn’t like my own, all friendly and clean. His was coarse and rough, and it felt like it wanted to pack itself in tight.Pushing off his knee strike was enough to launch me into a backflip. The sense of his magic vanished as I broke contact, but despite the distraction, I still stuck the landing.I didn’t pause, circling around him close enough that I could move in if he tried to make another whip and far enough that he couldn’t punch my lights out.Only two dozen seconds had passed since the fight started, and I think we each had a measure of the other.I was in so much trouble.But I had a really bad idea, and sometimes bad ideas were a great way to get out of a bind.It was a reckless idea too, but that’s how I fought most of the time anyway.Flein was the first to move. Sliding towards me on a wave of sand, his fist punched out and released a big poof of loose sand that filled the air before me.I countered with a blast of cleaning magic that didn’t do much. Some of that sand splashed through the front of my helmet and against my face. I had to blink fast to keep it out of my eyes.Flein’s quick motion ended with a heavy punch towards my middle. His fist had gained a long narrow bar at the end of it, giving him a bit more reach. I stepped back, grabbed his wrist, and pulled. At the same time, I grabbed onto his magic and cast a spell.It wasn’t anything fancy. It was the sort of thing I’d done a thousand times before. A wave of pure Cleaning magic.The wave burst out of him and washed over me to no effect.I grinned.I’d just cast a spell with his magic!Better yet, the sandy construct around his fist fell apart.Flein pulled his arm back in a hurry, and I hopped forwards and followed.I saw his eyes filled with confusion behind a sandy mask as I jumped towards him. “This might tickle!” I shouted.I darted in and started to poke at him with my free hand while shoving my broom between his legs and behind his knee. Every poke turned his Sand-aspect mana into more Clean-aspect, and with the change his armour fell apart in big clumps.Flein wasn’t going to let me off so easily though. He reached out and grabbed my broom handle. I lost my grip on it as he tugged it away and immediately let it fall to the side.I might have been out of a weapon, but I had just gained a second hand to poke him with!“Annoying,” he said.“Thanks, I’m trying really hard,” I said.And then Flein exploded, a burst of sand shoving off of him hard enough to send me reeling.I guessed that it wouldn’t be so easy to win here.
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