The Halls of Adjudication

Chapter 1: The Deal With the Devil

Barnard dashed as fast and as quiet as possible through the dark corridors that made up the passages that stretched across the Halls of Adjudication. By memory, he navigated passages that he had explored. He jumped pit traps that would drop him into pits of writhing snakes and he ducked under blades that swung at his head.

Luckily for Barnard, he had many shards dedicated to traversing the dark passageways that branched off from the main hallway that most champions fought back and forth across. Thanks to the three levels of Cat-Eye Shards Barnard could see completely clearly in the darkness making him less likely to take a wrong turn. Due to his legendary Minor Bullet-Time Shard, he could slow time to dodge deadly traps and quickly jump over obstacles. Most importantly though, Barnard had dumped almost every stat boost he had into his Agility. where others would have tripped or misstepped he found his footing easily.

As his team's Delver, Barnard had a specific job to do. For what felt like the last two weeks he had explored dangerous tunnels and defeated mobs of monsters to acquire more souls for their team. But today, he had only one goal. Get to the enemy's Heart and destroy it.

As Barnard ran his heart sat in the pit of his stomach. Until this morning, he and his team had finally started to feel confident. He was sure that this run would be their record game for clearing and farming. They had almost reached their max levels and in-game it had already felt like a week. They had begun to hope. Hope that was shattered as soon as the enemy team started knocking down their defenses.

It had only taken them one fight before they knew that whatever they had fought to get by now this enemy team had easily outpaced them. They had been ripped to shreds. Barnard could almost still feel the place on his neck where a spear had speared him and killed him.

When his team reformed in their Heart-room. They were frantic and wide-eyed but they knew that they only had one chance... To play defensively and take let Barnard take the fight to the enemy.

Barnard definitely had too much on his mind because his head was almost taken off by a golem that swept a giant hand for him. With a flicker of panic, he mentally reach inside of himself and triggered his precious Minor Bullet-Time Shard. Barnard couldn't have done it sooner because as soon as the shard activated time slowed as a golem's fist descended toward him as if moving an inch a minute.

Barnard knew he would be dead if he had not triggered his bullet-time shard. Due to his lack of constitution, his body wouldn't have been able to withstand the hit. And he would have been made into a paste on the wall.

But the triggering of his bullet-time shard also hurt Barnard as his use of it was not endless. Per day he could only use it so much and with each use, it became harder and harder to access until he became too weak to use the shard.

With ease, Barnard aimed to roll between the golem's legs. Halfway through the roll, he stopped pulling on his shard letting the world lurch violently into full speed as his vision chaotically blurred around him as he completed his roll, caught his footing, and sprinted down his memorized path. The Golem made a lumbering path after him but soon even the crashing noises soon faded out in the twisted path.

Finally, he arrived at a dead-end where the tunnels ended with a torch flickering on the wall. With a smile, Barnard pulled a token on a necklace from a pocket at his side. A symbol of a Rat on the token matched one that was inlaid onto the metal of the torch and when raised to be near each other they both began to glow and a passage opened up.

Barnard rushed through the passage before it closed Barnard found himself in a large hallway. flanked on both sides by torches. Down the center of the large hallways, a line of glowing tiles lead in either direction as the hall curved gently. In one direction he heard the sounds of fighting. He knew with each scream that his friends were being cut down as they tried to stop the last of their defenses stopping from being destroyed.