Chapter 1291  1291 Bowl me Over


    --- Green ---


    Green let her boots carry her up therge gaps and onto a five person checkpoint. She''d been bad that getting those, but it didn''t really seem necessary. The only person left ''in the race'' so to speak was Burnice. Carl was still working his way around the edges of the bowl Burgandy was a way back, having lost the path Green was taking, and Nell was in slowly making her way through the basin.


    Green still didn''t know what was going on though. Her eyes were good, and with a mostly straight look the floating tforms seemed to go on forever. Sure it probably wasn''t endless… but with Thyme you never really knew. There had to be a trick of some kind that she wasn''t seeing.


    *Maybe the finish line is somewhere in one of the teleportation rooms? Perhaps one with multiple tforms that will take you there? Thyme did say earlier that only MOST of those areas were for individualpetitors. Perhaps the ones that let multiple people inside all lead to the finish line?*


    Green''s foot hit the tform and then suddenly she was inside a new testing room. Green''s eyes looked around for the finish line… but sadly no such luck. Just a sign that says ''Praise the Sun'' which… sure? "Um… I praise the sun?" said Green. Nothing happened.


    *I expected that to work honestly. I''ve been able to find a trick for every single room before this. Well, not the bullseye room, but that was so easy it might as well have been a trick. So… what''s going on here?*


    Green looked around. The room was small, with a single light source in the very corner of the room. It was a small room too, perhaps three metres for each wall. Certainly no more than that anyway. The floor did have a nice pattern on it, all swirling lines and nice colours but it didn''t give her any further answers.


    Green looked over the sign again. It was… just a ne wooden sign as far as she could see. The words looked to be carved into the wood, but knowing Thyme it was probably just grown that way. Green frowned and looked at the light source and said, "I praise you?" Nothing.


    *Ok clearly I''m missing something. The walls are nk. The floor is very fancy but I don''t really see anything in the patterns that make it up. It''s all just swirls and lines. It looks nice but nothing more than that. Perhaps…*


    Green pushed some mana into her boots andunched towards the ceiling, looking down the entire time to ensure that any picture revealed itself… it also meant she wasn''t looking up when her head smacked into the ceiling. It wasn''t too hard, Green was used to her boots and she''d just overshot things a bit. Still hurt though.


    Green managed to avoid stumbling as her feet hit the ground but it was a close thing. *Urgh. Well that''s clearly not the answer.* grumbling Green moved around the room until she was underneath the light. She looked up at it with a frown on her face, squinting to help with the brightness. "PRAISE BE!" shouted Green.


    The sound echoed around the room for a bit and… nothing happened. Green was honestly starting to feel a bit silly. With a sigh she turned away from the light… and saw something on the back of the sign. It was a series of six poses all being made by different figures. Green red at the one in the top left, a knight in a bucket helm and a sun on his chest, his hands raised above his head in a V formation.


    Grumbling to herself, "That''s gotta be it. Dammit, not sure how I feel about this one," Green walked around the sign and positioned herself in the centre of the room facing the light. With a deep breath, she raised her arms up to either side and pushed her chest forward slightly. For a beat nothing happened.So Green shouted "PRAISE THE SUN!" and she was engulfed in silver light.


    It was a bit awkward to return to the obstacle course in such a position, but nobody was looking at her. Well nobody except Carl, but he was quite chill so it should be fine. With her eyes locked on Burnice''s back, Greenunched herself forward, aiming to make up some time.


    Each bounce was risky then thest, as Green continually aimed for the tforms at the edge of her jumping abilities. So far, it was working out, Green was shocked when she managed to clear a full TEN tforms without getting spirited away or locked inside. There was one tform that turned into mush after she left it, and another that spawned a bush of some kind, but she ignored both of those as she kept up the sprint.


    Burnice wasn''t looking so far out of reach. Green grinned with anticipation. She could do this. Green kicked off the next tform hard, ready just a few more tforms, and perhaps throwing the dagger she had on her would be a good surprise attack. Burnice would never know what-


    SMACK


    Green''s arm was just barely raised in time to prevent her nose from mming into the suddenly generated shield. What was worse, she happened to be in midair, having just leapt from the tform she was standing on a moment before. Green gathered enough of her wits to kick the shield, hard, and step back onto the tform, if a bit shakier in the knees.


    "Urgh… what''s the question?" asked Green to the air.


    A floating series of words appeared before her, and Green felt ready to strangle someone. It was not a simple question she could breeze through, nor was it a difficult question she could struggle to puzzle out. Heck, it wasn''t even a question impossible for her to answer. It was just the words ''Calm down, take a short break'' floating in the air in front of her. Green felt the strong desire to hit something.


    *Did Thyme really put a fucking speed cap on these damned tforms? I can''t believe it. No, I actually cannot believe Thyme would do that. Even with things being mostly random I can''t see Thyme trying to stimmy progress if you manage to get a great run of luck. Sure I triggered a few things, but they didn''t even slow me down, so they don''t count really.


    Then again… did Thyme make all these tforms or did Thyme hire someone else to do them? A decent amount of the projects for this segment of the tournament seem coborative. Perhaps whoever designed the course wanted to ensure that luck couldn''t be too much of a factor?*


    Green looked at the shield, clearly different from the standard ones. It wasn''t dimming at all despite the time that had passed. Burnice had vanished at least, so the elf wasn''t getting further ahead of her. Burgandy and Nell were still missing, possibly in the bowl. It was hard to tell. Carl was doing fairly well. He was just three spaces before the end of the bowl. Though he was currently trapped in a question box, so it might still take him a few minutes to get to the checkpoint.


    *Seems like Carl made the right choice going for the side of the bowl. Not sure how much better, but it seems like he''ll still save time. Though really, the best choice would''ve been for Burgandy to follow behind him where there''s no chance of getting the cleared tforms wrong. It might have allowed her to catch up properly but I suppose she wasn''t really thinking about that. She was probably too focused on taking me out. Though I do wonder how Nell fell behind.


    Nell was doing so well at the start. Did she just have a good run of it back then? Did she run into a single great challenge? Where is she? It''s hard to tell but I don''t think she''s even started the climb yet. Did Burgandy attack her? It''s possible that''s why they''re both missing. I do wonder what''s going on with those two. Still, I guess that''s one less, or perhaps two less problems for the moment.*


    Green looked at the shield again. It hadn''t budged at all. *What could the challenge be here? Surely it isn''t just to wait things out? I refuse to believe that there''s a timer on this thing. Those have always been clear in this challenge. So what could it be? Calm down and take a short break… calm down and take a short break… wait. Is this thing measuring my heat rate?*


    Green ced a hand over her rapidly beating heart and let out a long sigh. If it WAS measuring heartrate, this could be a bit of wait. Green sucked in a deep breath, and slowly lowered herself to the ground. She was a bit more vulnerable like this, but if she really needed to calm down this was the fastest way. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.