D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

---- Willow ---- 

Willow estimated she now had about three hundred metres to work with, and had decided that was going to be enough. At this point, it was… rather obvious that Thyme was just extending the platform. She'd been walking on 'thin air' for quite a while now, and Thyme had started tapping their foot. So… yes best time to just be off. She'd stick to the plan. 

Go for the first ring, desperately try to get the second ring without using the gloves. Go through the third, skip the fourth, grab the fifth, then blast over to get the sixth and seventh before blasting back to get the last one or two rings at the bottom corner. It was a good plan, even better than Willow thought considering there were three rings in the South-West at the end, not two as Willow was thinking. 

Willow went to take a runner's start with hands on the ground… then realised that the ground had no give to it. It was a completely static surface reinforced by Thyme's will. So there was just no point. Instead she just got into position as if she was part way through a step. Waited a breath… then took off. 

Willow felt her heart pumping in her ears as she pushed her legs as fast as they would go. She needed as much speed as they could give her. Even if she was exhausted afterwards, she just needed the speed for a few more moments… 

Willow nearly tripped at the edge. She would never admit it, but in her running she'd been rather distracted by forcing herself to go as fast as she could. It was only the shoes she'd left behind that clued her in, and it still took a half second to remember WHY there was shoes there on the first place. That slight delay was nearly too long, but Willow managed it. 

She rocketed off the platform, her speed carrying her through the air much further then the two men before her. Willow was ready though, she unbuttoned her shirt then spread her arms wide, trying to get as much drag as possible… then head back the way she came. Willow claimed the first ring as she was making progress and grinned when she just barely scraped into ring two without using her gloves at all. 

A short glide North to be above the third ring and Willow was biting her lip. The temptation to use her gloves to get over to the fourth ring was high… but it would then cost her a second charge just to get back to the fifth ring in the North-West, directly above her right now. It just wasn't worth it. 

Willow claimed the fourth ring and glided forward until she was over the fifth ring then she started to ready her hands. She buttoned up her shirt again, fumbling a little over a few of the buttons, and wasting perhaps too much time with it. Then she got in position. Both hands against her chest, with the one she wanted to activate on top. 

As soon as she made it through the fifth ring, Willow pushed her mana into the damned thing. She felt her ribs creaking against the pressure, but held strong. She spun in the air once, just to get her bearings and managed to glide over and through the sixth and seventh rings up in the North-East quadrant. 

Switching hands… and moving her gloves down to her stomach, accepting the pain this would cause but not trusting her ribs with the recoil… Willow activated the cursed things. The air was forced from Willow's lungs, and a bit of bile left her mouth. Willow ignored that though. She just needed to get through the last… the last THREE RINGS. Oh you sneaky shit Thyme. 

Willow didn't say anything else, she just angled herself as best she could manage through the pain and fell down through the last of the rings, and the final one. Willow stumbled as her feet hit the ground. Even with Thyme stealing the momentum somehow, she was in pain and nearly fell over. She was down a perfectly acceptable amount of mana, just to around half, and she'd done it all with only a single ring being skipped. Well that and her legs felt like they were on fire, but that was fine really. Completely fine. "Give me the time," said Willow. Though it also seemed that she sounded a bit like someone who'd swallowed some sand. *Woops. I sound horrible. Hmm… well maybe that will make people think I've used up more mana then it seems.*

"Yes indeed what a show!" said Thyme with a grin. "You've managed the fall in three minutes and forty seconds. Just four seconds off Gareth! That is of course, not taking into account the fact that you have a penalty to your name. Alas, for missing the one ring, you'll be adding thirty seconds to your time, bringing you up to four minutes and ten seconds" 

---- Mauve ---- 

*Hmm… Willow seems to have the right of it. Get a good run, hit one, two, three, skip four, five, blast, six and seven, then go for however many rings are over in the corner. Probably another two. It seems like a solid path. Is there any way I can do it better? I could go from one to two then skip three to go to four… but really that's just making work for myself. I'd still need to get to five, probably with a blast, then back for six and seven. Not really sure why Nabras did his the way he did. Willow's ordering looks so much better. Then again, I suppose he wasn't confident he could grab the second ring without using up an extra blast. 

Right then. So the question is do I skip four myself? I didn't use any mana up in the first round, and I stand by that decision. So I need to work out how much mana I'm willing to use up here. Mauve put her shoes down, much like Gareth and Willow before her, and started to jog away from the starting line. With Willow showing that it extended for ages she wasn't worried. 

When I was testing things it took up about twenty percent of my mana per charge. A bit less really, but more than fifteen percent. Wish I was a bit better at managing those numbers.. .but eh whatever. So I go for one and two with this strategy, then go for three and five, six and seven, then the final rings. Nope, I can't think of anything better and honestly I don't feel like wasting time trying to figure out how to get a better path, if there even is one.*

From there, Mauve did much the same as Willow did, with slightly more success. Mauve didn't bother to unbutton her shirt and nearly overshot the first ring, but made it up by making it to the second ring with more space to spare. The third and fifth rings were easy, and Mauve was strong enough to just tank the 'hit' from the gloves with her arm instead of worrying about her chest. 

There went six and seven, where Mauve worked out the secret. That the final ring set was a set of three. *Damn. That's gotta be why Nabras exhausted himself. He realised he couldn't miss all three of them otherwise he'd have been even worse off then Gareth.*

Of course, going for them was Mauve's plan all along so she shot over to them and made it through the final ring with no issues. She didn't almost collapse, when returned to the ground, and didn't bother speaking. Instead, she just panted, let them think it whatever they want. Going down to sixty percent mana wasn't too bad, but the adrenaline was a heck of a thing. 

"For Mauve we've got a lovely time here of… damn, three minutes and forty-one seconds! Right on Willow's heals. With the same route, you take the same thirty second penalty. That brings your score, Mauve, to four minutes and eleven seconds" 

---- Cyan ----

For Cyan, it wasn't hard to work out what to do. Mauve and Willow had gone for pretty much the same tactic, and it had worked out seemingly quite well for all of them. Gareth might have been faster getting to the bottom, but he lost out hard on the penalties. Still, Cyan knew what to do. Even if he'd had trouble meditating unlike the others, he had enough mana for this. Probably. 

So it went like this. Shoes off, then jogging two hundred or so metres. Turning around and sprinting for dear life and then slowing down in the air, switching directions and claiming the first ring. Like Mauve, Cyan ignored the whole… taking of the shirt thing. With that done, he went through the second ring, then the third, then the fifth all no trouble. 

To get to the sixth and seventh rings, Cyan pulled his legs in tight and used them to take the brunt of the gloves impact. Horrible idea really because no his knees were sore, but he'd live. Through six and seven, then Cyan used the glove to get over to the final three, and wasn't that a surprise? Sure his arms hurt after shooting towards them, but that was fine. He'd recover before the final round. Hopefully. 

"Once more, we see a similar pattern… but has it paid off? Somewhat. It seems Cyan here has managed a time of three minutes and forty-six seconds, which while very respectable, does fall a few seconds short of the two that came before him. Adding in the one penalty, that leaves Cyan with four minutes and sixteen seconds as his final time!" 

*Really not what I was hoping for considering I only have around twenty percent of my mana left… but I suppose I'll take what I can get. The final round is going to be… risky. I might need to risk passing out just to get a decent score. Hmm…*