A Gentleman's Curse

Arc 2 Chapter 15: Cheaters Get Special Love

"Oh get UP already!" Layla yelled down at the unfortunate Minotaur Combatant that was laying face down by her on the obstacle course she'd made.

Three weeks had gone by since Damien's second day of classes. The first month of the year was coming to a close and Alexa had finished her healing about a week prior, making it just in time to suffer with him more in this class she'd made him take.

They were all being forced to go down the course Layla had designed over the break, one person at a time. It didn't look enjoyable at all from Damien's point of view; the multitude of Combatants not even making it a quarter of the way through before breaking a bone or falling unconscious.

No magic was allowed and no Mage had gone yet. Cedar had elected to be the first to try it out and Damien was all too happy to let him make a fool of himself. No magic would make this impossible for them to get past even the first obstacle Damien theorized.

Not only was the course full of painful looking things, Layla would sometimes run alongside them as they went through it, randomly deciding to throw in punches or trips they had to dodge on top of everything else. Reinal wasn't present today and yet it still seemed the Kreel was just as determined to ruin everyone's day as usual.

Damien was fourth in line to go behind Arion, Cedar, and the only Human Combatant in the class who was nervously waiting for his chance to hurt himself. Damien sent out a silent prayer for his good fortune.

"FINE, YOU'RE DONE. Pathetic. NEXT!" Layla yelled out, voice booming across the field they were in and causing the Human to jump slightly, wandering to the left toward the start of the course. "Move forward when you are ready. If you take too long I'll throw you in personally."

The Human nodded and took a few deep breaths before setting into a forward stance. After a few seconds, like a silent gunshot had gone off, he sprinted forward and began launching himself over the hurdles that were sometimes covered in what looked like some kind of oil.

Each hurdle was about twenty feet from the one in front of it with a large stone pillar standing in between them. Your options were to guess which were greased to jump off of or to utilize the pillars to get across the one hundred foot long section. If you accidentally slipped or tried to step on the ground in between them you'd quickly learn that not only the hurdles were greased as your head slammed into the ground beneath you. That was how the first attempt failed, along with a few of the bulkier Combatants.

Words of complaint had been thrown around by the first and she gave him a second chance, only to immediately kick him in his back as he tried to land on a pillar, sending him crashing into the ground. 'Don't always be eager to go first unless you know what you're getting into and don't ever bitch about how unfair something is. Life isn't fair,' she'd yelled down to the groaning Dwarf.

The Human that was currently going seemed to take the hurdles in stride relatively well, using the pillars for support as he shot from one to the next. Twenty feet seemed like an extremely large distance to go initially, but the Combatants had treated it like a simple hop from pillar to pillar.

The Human got to the last one and almost fell off as it cracked slightly and began falling forward, but managed to crawl to the top of it and leap the remaining distance to safety on the other edge of the final hurdle.

His leap due to the poor way he'd handled the last pillar had barely managed to clear the greased section and he crashed to the ground, tumbling to a stop a few feet later, right before he rolled into the next section and impaled himself. Ironically, the large divots in the ground from where others had slammed into the ground and failed before him was what caused him to stop rolling soon enough. He was off to a riveting start.