For a moment, Rylan wished he'd borrowed Soren's new boots, as they would've made the cloud of platforms in front of him wildly easier to traverse.

Then he shook his head. They would've been useless to him anyway, as he had zero experience with them. Even if he managed to somehow activate their effect, it would probably just trip him up and make him faceplant, like it used to do to Soren in the beginning.

No. He had to use his own Skills and advantages. Not the least of which was Arphin. For starters, the spiritgear could help him choose a path. First, he turned to the winding, undulating path with bridges guarded by shield-bearing puppets of increasing size.

"All right," Rylan said. "If we take the bridge path, I imagine there's little chance we'd fall off. However, bypassing the guardians without defeating them doesn't look easy, and with those big shields in the way, it wouldn't be simple to hit the weak spot on their chests either..."

That was one of the more interesting things Tamina had been able to tell him. While any damage to the puppets made them weaker and slower, the only fool-proof way to destroy them was to hit a hexagonal area on the centre of their chest, indicated by the mark of the Hermean Empire.

[Oh! What if we tried punching through those shields instead, Boss?]

Rylan scratched the side of his head. "That could work, actually... at least for the first few. But it would cost a lot of mana. I think that's probably the biggest danger on that path: getting stuck when we run out of mana. We only have an hour, which is not enough to recover a significant amount."

[Fog, that's a good point, Boss! What about the other path then? The weak spots of those weird-legged puppets are totally exposed; I bet we could nail them with ease!]

Rylan turned back to the cloud of hexagonal platforms that held the sleek puppets with their backwards knees and crossbow arms. Like Arphin said, the hexagonal marks containing a stylised flame were clearly visible on their chests. "Something tells me it's not going to be that easy..."

Not to mention the pronounced risk of falling that came with jumping onto and from small moving platforms. Still, as Rylan watched a little longer, he couldn't help but notice something interesting.

The moving platforms are each following a pattern that passes by a number of stationary platforms!

Some of the platforms were moving in loops, while others stopped and started, moving back and forth over a set path. Moreover, while the various paths and loops had different durations, they seemed to all be multiples of some shortest loop lasting about six seconds.

While it looked complicated as a whole, the path of each individual platform was, at least, predictable, which definitely made it a more viable option.

The cloud path had other upsides, too. It was shorter, for one, and while Rylan would probably get hit by a number of crossbow bolts, it didn't seem likely that the puppets would try to physically block him from moving forward. Moreover, the moving platforms could help him conserve mana by reducing the number of times he needed to use Jump.

The longer he considered his options, the more confident Rylan became in his decision. "Our mana is too limited," he finally stated. "If we had more of it—and perhaps some more Augmentations for Knife-Throwing—I think it would've been a good choice. As it is, I think we have to risk the cloud path."

[You're the boss, Boss! Let's do it!]

Rylan checked to make sure the leather strap over his chest holding Chef Zelim's knives and the letter opener was secure, and that both his dagger's plain sheath and Arphin's ornate one were still properly fastened to his belt, and only then moved closer to the edge.

He allowed himself a single glance down, and immediately regretted it as a sense of vertigo swept him. The shimmering gold surface at the bottom of the bubble was a long way down. It's fine. Ignore it. Falling would just get me safely ejected anyway.

Instead, Rylan firmly focused on the various platforms that were approaching the edge, taking some time to study their movements. Finally, he picked one that performed a long, elliptical loop along a sloped trajectory that took it deep into the cloud of platforms.

On the platform's next approach, he took a deep breath, moved a few steps back, then performed a running leap without bothering to use his Skill.

He'd purposely waited for the platform to start moving away again, as he'd been worried about not having enough space to slow down on the merely six-foot-wide platform. As it was, he'd almost waited too long, and had to stretch his legs forward to get his toes on the closest edge of the platform.

Still, it proved to be enough, and he came to a halt right in the centre of the hexagon of blue stone.

The moment he landed, however, a sound like a gong being hit rang out throughout the Dungeon. High above them, the hourglass turned over, causing glittering blue sand to start trickling down.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

[Boss, watch out!] Arphin cried at the same time, sending along the sense of a fast-moving object coming from the upper left.

Rylan reflexively twisted his right shoulder out of the way, and the bolt whizzed past.

His eyes locked onto the puppet right as it jumped. Dread pooled in his stomach, but he didn't let it deter him from dropping into a ready stance and drawing his filleting knife from his strap.

[You, ehm, you're not gonna use me, Boss?]

"Not yet, Arphin. I first want to study how it moves and behaves," Rylan replied, never taking his eyes off his foe as he charged his Skill with only 0.1 points of mana.

The moment the puppet landed on a nearby platform, Rylan whipped his arm forward and launched his blade. However, the construct reacted nigh-immediately, its knees creaking as it practically bounced off the platform it had landed on, and continued to sail through the air sideways, its arms and expressionless head locked onto Rylan from above.

Alarm bells immediately started to ring in Rylan's head, and he tensed up.

One of the puppet's arms fired mid-jump, loosing a bolt with a resounding twang. As the projectile was fired from a mere thirty feet away or so, Rylan barely had time to react, and could only move his head out of the way an inch or two, causing the projectile to glance off the Mana Shell on his cheek. Ripples of white light came cascading over his right eye, momentarily obscuring his vision.

The projectile continued down towards the platform he was standing on, where it struck the edge with a resounding crack that caused tremors to pulse through the blue stone. When Rylan glanced at the point of impact, his blood chilled at the sight of small fissures snaking out across the stone.

Fog! Even at Tier 5, his Mana Shell would not be able to withstand a lot of direct hits from those, and it seemed like the platform he was standing on wouldn't either.

His head whipped back up to the puppet, just in time to catch it landing on another platform, a little above and to the right of Rylan. In a flash, he noticed that the gears on the arm it had just fired with were slowly turning, and the bowstring was retracting deeper into its arm again, gaining tension.

It's reloading!

However, the puppet didn't have just one arm, and it was already raising the other.

Too close, and I've got no cover whatsoever!

Not for the first time, Rylan was starting to see Tamina's wisdom in carrying around a shield everywhere she went.

[Boss, over there!]

Arphin's voice was accompanied by an urgent sense of direction, indicating they were about to pass nearly straight over another platform.

Rylan spun on his heel and jumped down, barely bothering to look. Only as he fell through the air did he realise he'd trusted Arphin blindly. Thankfully, his trust was rewarded as his feet touched down on a stationary platform, right as another shot pinged off the stone platform he'd just left, further cracking the stone.

[It's retreating, Boss! Seems like it's waiting for its arms to reload!]

"Thanks, Arphin," Rylan said, his breath coming fast as his heart beat a mile a minute. The reprieve was most welcome, but Rylan figured it would be short-lived.

And unfortunately, the platform he was now standing on wasn't going anywhere, making him as easy to pick off as a sleeping gull.

He'd originally been toying with the idea of just trying to outrun the puppet, and quickly moving on to the larger platform in between the first and second sections, but now that he was inside the whirling clockwork cloud of platforms, it seemed like a terrible idea.

Mostly because it would cost way too much mana to power all the Skill-assisted jumps he'd need to make. I need to take this puppet out so I can take my time and figure out a path forward that doesn't cost too much mana. But how?

His eyes sought out his foe, finding it staring down at him from high up once more, one of its arms already reloaded, the other rapidly inching closer.

I get why they call them puppets now... That thing never stops facing me. Even when I threw a knife, it just jumped without looking, like it knows where the platforms are at all times.

Rylan suppressed the shudder running down his spine. Focus! How can I...

He trailed off, his eyes widening as the puppet jumped downwards once more. Gritting his teeth, he drew Arphin.

[Oh! Is it my turn? Oh boy, this is going to be awesome!]

'It is your turn,' Rylan confirmed through the node, in case the puppet was listening. 'Focus on sending me feedback, and don't get distracted by what I do, all right? We need to nail this sucker in one go.'

[You got it, Boss!]

Rylan charged Arphin up with a full point of mana. It was probably wasteful, but he'd rather use a bit too much than fail the attempt. He swallowed, tracking the puppet as it bounced closer, hopping from platform to platform and slowly starting to raise an arm. Finally, it came to a stop on a nearby stationary platform, once more a little above him.

Nice try, but the high ground isn't going to save you from Arphin!

Before the puppet could shoot, Rylan whipped his arm forward halfway, then immediately drew it back.

He could sense Arphin's confusion during the motion, but the blade kept its word and dutifully focused on sending its sensations back to Rylan.

As Rylan had hoped, the puppet took the bait and leapt sideways towards an approaching platform.

Can't dodge in mid-air, now can you? And since you insist on facing me... Rylan tracked its trajectory as it arced through the air, and whipped his arm forwards once more, aiming for the highest point of its arc.

Time seemed to slow down as Arphin communicated his joyful sense of acceleration, causing Rylan to make minute, unconscious adjustments to his favourite blade's trajectory.

Upon release, he tensed his middle and index fingers and let them slide across Arphin's handle to counter out most of his spin, the way they'd been practising. Then, once Arphin left his hand, he grabbed hold of the blade with his Skill, and used his second Augmentation to cancel out the little remaining rotation, causing the spiritgear to fly like an arrow: perfectly straight with his tip forward.

At the same time, the puppet fired off another bolt. This one came at him dead on, so with no time or place to dodge, all Rylan could do was turn his shoulder into it.

Even as he did so, however, he never took his eyes off of Arphin.

The bolt flew faster, and struck first. White light rippled across his arm, which felt like it had just taken a bruising punch, the impact forcing him to take a step back on the small platform.

But the bolt ultimately was successfully deflected, unlike Arphin, who hit just a tad on the right side of the hexagonal mark, smashing through blue stone.

As the puppet shattered in mid-air, Rylan felt a familiar tugging on the node in his spirit, and raised his right hand. A moment later, his hand closed around Arphin's leather-wrapped hilt.

[We did it, Boss! That was awesome!]

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