Chapter 11: Chapter 11
Walking ahead, the duo didn't find anything of note, except of course the various murals and paintings on the walls. After a while Jaune had gotten bored of just being a glorified torch and had also started to pay more attention to the art pieces surrounding him.
The motifs were not angels and demons anymore, now the scenes seemed to depict the rise of what could be called a rudimentary civilisation. Of course it was illustrated from the viewpoint of a swordsman who only focused on the swords, forging methods, and new enemies to cut down. This left the rise of cities, with progressively modern architecture shaded with muted colours, relegated to the background.
"You know what's weird," the swordsman said. The glorified torch turned to Jain and shook his head, curious "We haven't once seen a depiction of a Grimm,. The humans on the murals have fought demons, dragons, animals and even themselves, but no Grimm."
Jaune froze in his tracks and couldn't help but blurt out, "They're implying that there was once a time without Grimm!"
The swordsman shrugged and urged him to go forwards. From this point on Jaune paid close attention to the paintings, probably even closer attention than Jain, as he really wanted to know when the Grimm appeared.
After a bit more walking, humanity in the pictures having developed fairly well to this point, the first Grimm appeared. A dragon type Grimm, something Jaune had never seen before.
Backtracking he found no clue to where it came from. Jaune sighed, he guessed he was expecting too much, countless people have been trying to find out where the Grimm had come from, countless had failed. It was very unlikely that he would find the answer in pyramid dedicated to swords that had even been explored at least once before.
Not feeling up to wasting anymore of his mental power on the murals, he continued onwards paying only a little attention to the order in which new Grimm appeared; Deathstalker, Nevermore, Creep, geist, and so on. Sometimes the Grimm would fall over a village or town, decimating it.
All from the view of the swordsman fighting against it of course,. Sometimes when the Grimm horde seemed particularly large, there would be a depiction of a white skinned woman with black veins on her face, hovering over the Grimm. Maybe a symbol of the destruction they brought?
Before he could waste any more thoughts on the symbolism, Jain nudged him and pointed forwards. After looking, Jaune ascertained that yes, there was a big hole in the ground, which seemed to be the only way forward, since behind it there was only a solid wall.
Jaune turned to the Swordsman, "You think it's ok to throw an arcane bolt in there?"
Jain seemed to mull over it and then nodded. Jaune took is a the approval it was and charged up another ball of his signature spell, which was coincidentally also the only one he actually knew whose effects were clearly visible.
Speaking about visibility, the arcane bolt fizzled out the second it passed even slightly into the hole in the ground. Jaune furrowed his brows, he hadn't actually created a failed arcane bolt in months. He sighed, thinking that those days were behind him, he guessed they weren't.
Throwing down another one, this time carefully constructing it, he determined that there was nothing wrong on his part, the magic just fell apart after passing through the hole.
He turned to the other explorer, "Do you think we should go in blind, or do you have a different idea?"
Jain pulling out his sword was answer enough. Jaune readied himself to jump into the hole after Jain, but scuttled back surprise when the Swordsman simply swung his sword and fired a lance of light into the darkness revealing its contents.
"You could have warned me." Jaune grumbled halfheartedly but was more focused on the revealed contents of the hole which were, in this case, approximately a hundred statues.
His brow twitched, "You have got to be kidding me." meanwhile Jain looked like a kid whose parents owned a candy story and had allowed him to clear it out while they left on a romantic honeymoon.
Jaune followed the Swordsman, who had already jumped down and was taking a closer look at the statues.
There were nine on nine rows of them, 81 poses in all their glory, put together very orderly. The stances of the statues all seemed to flow together as you walked down the line, Jaune noted, bringing the movements together he figured out that every row of statues represented one big movement.
Ignoring the whooshing Jain was making as he followed the first row of statues, his body contorting and blade swinging fluidly, Jaune looked for the exit. Seeing a wall with nine blue circles that had yet to light up on it he dejectedly went over to the first row, pulled out his sword and after shouting at Jain to not leave him behind this time, went to work.
It was, exhausting, in a way that sparring wasn't. Fighting was instinct, raw unrestrained need to live. Learning however, was more complicated and took much more dedication, you needed to pay attention, you needed to contort your muscles slowly. Rigorous was the word that came to mind.
It was also liberating. Doing something, that you know could save your life in the future gave a feeling of contentment. Almost addicting, you knew you had done something. You could finally rest, do something fun, enjoy life knowing that you had done all you could.
At the moment however, Jaune didn't feel particularly liberated, or content. He felt more along the lines of completely exhausted, fatigued or maybe even corpse like.
He had overtaxed his body, that was obvious, but they simply didn't have enough supplies, or in other words, time, so that he could leisurely go through the nine movements.
It had all been done in one sitting. When he was halfway through, Jain had come over to help him, being finished himself. But that didn't make it any less tiring, just easier, the pieces of advice the swordsman threw out occasionally really helping it bring to a point, that he would always be, at a certain disadvantage when it came to following the way of the sword.
But that was okay, that would just mean he would have to put in four times the effort that an equally old swordsman, or knight put in. And stats, he wouldn't be needing those, he had magic. And for those geniuses, who were talented and also trained as much as him, he would just watch down upon them from his place on the mountain of Levels.
Jaune knew what he wanted to do, or at least one small part had been uncovered in this journey, he wanted to experience things nobody else had, wanted to visit places that had not seen a human in millennia, maybe ever. Most of all, he wanted his strength to grow alongside these experiences.
"Every Journey you take, is but a page in the book of life, every experience you make, but a word, try to make a book, that you can be proud of." Jaune felt the tugging inside his mind, the skill shared dreams bringing about the quote that had just slipped from his mouth.
"That's a philosophy to live by if I ever heard one." Jain muttered as he stood up and held out a hand, which jaune gladly accepted to pull his semi rested body onto his feet.
Jaune answered, "It is isn't it?" Walking towards the last statue in the last row, he finished the movement causing all the blue circles to light up.
Entering the next cave Jaune felt something wash over his head, like an egg being broken, and the reassuring presence of the Swordsman beside him disappeared.
Drawing his sword Jaune entered a ready position and spun around quickly to determine if there was any threat moving towards him, to high strung to activate his sensing skill. He could only perceive the numerous mirrors he was now surrounded by visually.
The mage in him, who had devoured many books, suspected what was coming next, after all, the main purpose of mirrors was to reflect. So when a body fell down from the ceiling only to right itself up and give him an exasperated grin he already had his greeting on the ready.
"Hello Jaune."
The doppelganger replied, „Hi there."
Then, they just sort of looked at each other, both of them wondering, am I really that gawky/scrawny.
Honestly, looking at yourself in a mirror was fine and all, but truly seeing yourself, without being aware what your body was doing was a weird experience.
As he let his eyes roam over himself, and wasn't that something that could be taken out of context he noticed one important thing causing him to sigh.
The hands of his were in a room full of mirrors after all, weren't shaking from exertion like his were. His body still hadn't recovered from the ordeal of the 81 statues.
Now this could either mean one of two things, the reflection had access to high quality alcohol, which according to different sources helped with shaky hands, or, more likely he was a reflection of Jaune in what would be his peak condition.
The mage really hoped his reflection was simply drunk.
Jaune grinned, "I'm not drunk you know." Jaune cursed. Of course the reflection could follow his thought process, but he could also do the same.
"How does it feel like being a copy that will fade away soon?" The face of the reflection lost its smugness and gained a sinister edge to it.
"How do you know that I will fade, maybe" he pointed his finger at him, "maybe you're the copy."
The original shook his head, "I know I'm not, your mind games are weak." Reflection shrugged and waved his hands dismissively before saying.
"You have to admit it was worth a try."
Jaune chuckled and loosened his body, maybe this fight wouldn't be so bad, "You know, the fact that we're the same person means we have the same sense of humour, just hope we won't crack the same jokes."
The reflection shrugged, before reluctantly admitting, "That would be, boring I admit, but let's slowly get to the fight, hmm."
Jaune quickly said, "Wait, before that, I want to know," The reflection looked at him, waiting, "Are you my evil clone or something, or what is this stage."
Reflection looked thoughtful, "I guess I should tell you, the person I hold dearest in the world is myself after all, even if myself is someone else at the moment." He waved his hand at the mirrors.
"These aren't the first mirrors that you have encountered in the pyramid,." Jaune's eyes lit up in realization and he urged the other him to continue. The flash after the first door they'd encountered had broken apart under the effect of the compass.
"Well, in that brief second, the power commanding this place created me, I am the version of you, before you entered the pyramid, so therefore, I do not know any of the skills that you have learned here." Jaune hummed and asked.
"And what if you beat me?" Reflection grinned.
"Funny that you ask, if that were to happen you would die, and I would walk out of here. The new Jaune, and you know what," The Reflection leaned in, for the first time looking truly evil, „Nobody would be able to tell the difference."
At that point, Jaune decided that he was done with talking, listening to his reflection, the stakes were higher than originally thought.
If he was telling the truth that was This was himself he was talking about after all. Due to the fact his body was fatigues he couldn't go on the offensive, so he put up his sword in a defensive position and waited.
And waited.
The reflection was seemingly taking his time, leisurely drawing its sword and slowly forming two arcane bolts over its shoulders.
That was the moment Jaune noted the thing that would decide the inevitable fight. Stamina. The reflection was made when he had just entered the pyramid, therefore it should have an unhindered body, while he himself, was tired down to his bones.
By the arrogant grin on the reflections face he knew that as well.
Think Jaune think, he would have to go on the offensive, that was a given, the reflection would just stand there and wait for him to tire himself out with the simple act of standing if he did nothing.
But all his moves were transparent, he had to surprise the enemy. That was all it was in the end, another enemy. But how exactly could he surprise himself, the thought process was identical.
That was it!
Randomization. He was going to have to attack randomly, unpredictably.
Not giving himself any time to think Jaune jumped forward and slashed at his grinning reflection. An arcane bolt whizzing towards his face made him roll to the ground, sword held aloft as if not to stab himself. Not bothering with making his own bolt and trying not to think much about what he was doing, he swept his right leg at the reflections shin causing it to step backwards abruptly a now cautious look on its face.
"So you came to the same conclusion," it scowled. "Foreseeable."
Another arcane bolt came hurtling at him before he could fully right himself up, its owner following closely behind, sword raised. Logic dictated that he stay on the ground and try to roll away.
Jaune dictated otherwise and threw his sword at the reflection, while slightly bending his body to dodge the bolt by the smallest margin.
The move caused his tired body to collapse on the ground, but not before sending an arcane bolt at the reflection that was already busy dodging the sword.
The magic found its target, smacking the reflection in the chest knocking it back. Not willing to lose his momentum Jaune crawled forward at a speed that would make every baby weep in jealousy and latched onto the falling reflections leg. Drawing the knife he had on his belt he swiftly and brutally lodged it into the first place that came to mind.
And Jain had said he shouldn't bother looting the creeps.
"Motherfuc-." The reflections words were halted by a pair of hands suddenly appearing around his throat, and the sharp pain coming from its behind.
Whilst choking himself, Jaune tried to knee the downed reflection between the legs as often as possible, in the process jostling the lodged in knife and causing enough pain to interrupt the casting of any type of magic.
Slowly the body beneath him stopped struggling and Jaune watched the light fade out of his eyes, turning dead, body limp. Was that what it would look like when he finally died?
The adrenaline dissipated and his body collapsed onto the ground as the reflection shattered into thousands, millions of small light fragments disappearing into the surrounding mirrors.
Jaune rolled onto his back, still breathing heavily. The fight, if you could call it that, had been short, but brutally intensive.
Jaune knew himself, that he had never before been attacked by a rabid human who was deciding all his actions randomly. Therefore he knew that it was the most likely way to victory against himself. The odd thing was though that his reflection hadn't anticipated that. Maybe they weren't truly the same after all.
Lying on the ground, the mirrors slowly started dissolving around him, collapsing into small glittering lights and flying away revealing the familiar grimy walls behind them.
Not having anything better to do, body still to tired to really move, he thought about what the challenge had actually been about.
It was probably supposed to be some sort of proof that skill mattered more than stats, which was inspiring in a way, it meant there was still hope for Jaune Arc the magical swordsman, if it wasn't for that swordsmanship learning blockage that was.
The usual swordsman capable of reaching this pyramid, had a physique that would only be mildly inconvenienced by the training one had to go through to get to this point. The mirror imagine would be more fresh, but also less skilled. The skill difference would in the end prevail and the swordsman would come out with new confidence.
Sadly Jaune wasn't a swordsman and had finished the ordeal feeling as if his entire body had been put through a grinder, Jain however would most likely be in perfect shape, not bothered at all. The bastard hadn't even seemed to be sweating after imitating the hundred statues.
Of course that was the moment Jain walked into the room that had fully lost its mirror particles, as if to further prove his theory completely unharmed if a bit winded by his strong breaths.
He looked around, as if to make sure that there was no one else here, then he concentrated on the mage who was cleaning the ground with his clothes.
"You still alive? the task was annoying, since the other me knew all my old tricks, but it was pretty easy in the end."
Jaune couldn't find enough energy to open his mouth, but he was perfectly capable of pulling in four fingers and giving Jain the middle one.
After a few minutes Jaune finally managed to gather enough energy to pull himself up, not into a standing position, but thankfully there was a wall nearby which granted him support to rest his back on.
Jain's words were hard to make out because of the blood flowing in his head, caused by pulling himself up too fast but he managed. "I imagine your fight was harder due to the fact you have no constitution and were more tired after the statues due to that fact." The mage in question managed to raise his hand to give a thumbs up.
It was always jarring, to Jaune, that other people also had perfectly logical thought processes. It was completely opposite to the assumption that you were the only real human in existence and everyone else was a cheap caricature.
Suddenly a thought struck him, how did he know the Jain he was talking to was the real one. Well in the end it didn't really matter since they were both the same person, but he was still curious. Before any thought process could take place he blurted out his question.
"Are you the real Jain or the reflection?" Jain gave him a queer look, halting all movements, narrowing his eyes.
Almost urgently he asked, "What do you mean?"
A bit scared of Jain's scary face he quickly explained how his doppelgänger had told him that the winner of the fight would be the one walking out of the pyramid at the end of the day.
Jain after hearing this visibly relaxed and laughed. "Oh man, you really have hit rock bottom when you lie to yourself."
At Jaune's enquiring look he elaborated."Well, no matter how impressive this pyramid is, I know for a fact it has nowhere close the power it would need to create a fully functioning human being. Didn't the reflection break apart into floating lights after dying?"
He shook his head and further proved his point. "If it was really just another version of you it would have also been made out of flesh and blood, not what basically amounts to magical energy."
He gained a curious glint in his eyes. "The only thing I'm really interested in was why it would lie to you." He looked at Jaune.
Jaune shrugged, but inwardly he was thinking.
Why would he lie to himself, that was the question. There were many solutions, his copy hadn't had a long time to think, maybe a few hours if it had started intelligent thought the moment it had been copied in the first chamber, therefore the first conclusion he came to would be the most likely.
Jaune turned the problem around. If he was a clone, whose death was set in stone, what would he do before dying. What would he want to do.
Help the person who he cherished most in the world of course, help Jaune, the help the clone could give was limited, they had the same knowledge and experience base.
At best it could give him a new experience, which was also very limited by the environment, it struck him like always, suddenly, harshly and painfully.
The best thing, the only thing the clone could reasonably give him before disappearing was the experience of fighting with his life on the line. Unleash the inner beast so to say, so that next time, Jaune wouldn't hesitate, just observe that he was in mortal danger and attack.
Fuck.
Jaune sighed and leaned back thinking of anything to do, he wished he was a smoker at some of these points, he'd heard it was fairly distracting and pulled the mind away. Alcohol wouldn't be bad either.
Not having any of those Jaune rummaged through his pack, pulled out a water canteen and started drinking and afterwards eating to replenish his energy.
Jain, seemingly not interested in any further conversation, took a piece of blackbread and was munching on it while looking at the surrounding walls. Which were, surprise surprise also covered in murals.
He had a thought, how were they conversing while seeing each other, how was Jain looking at murals if Jaune was not there to create a light with his arcane bolt.
Looking around frantically he discovered. And what a grand discovery it is, that the ceiling was glowing with the natural light of the sun.
Go, detective, Jaune, go.
Before he could embarrass himself any further, he stood up on his protesting legs and followed the swordsman who was already distancing himself slowly towards the unknown.
The further in they got, the brighter the light coming from the ceiling became, it was like there were clouds gradually floating away from the sun letting it reveal even more of its glorious light.
Suddenly the corridor came to a stop, flaring out into a spacious room, an empty one, containing a single door. A great dome like expanse up above generating untold amounts of light, so much Jaune had to cover his eyes.
He couldn't help but voice his thoughts. "This looks suspiciously like the room before the boss, where we are supposed to rest and make strategies before entering." Musingly he looked around the circular room the walls depicting some scarce paintings, "If I'm not mistaken there might even be clues on how to defeat the boss on these walls," he turned to Jain, "What do you think?"
Jain nodded. "I would have to agree with you, it does feel like we are close to the end, we should study the paintings more closely they might offer a clue as to what expects us behind that door."
They both nodded in agreement and started to study the paintings in a circular manner, Jaune started on the left, Jain on the right.
The paintings were not very pretty, but they brought their meaning across clearly. A challenger would approach a master, the master was the same one that all the statues had been made after. The fight started, an hourglass appeared over their heads. Once the hourglass ran out.
The challenger vanished. Like he was never there in the first place. The master went into a resting position, presumably until another challenger approached. When he was done studying all the paintings that were, humorlessly enough, done like a comic, Jaune noted he had come to the door, signifying that his study was over.
Looking at Jain he had also came to an end. Jaune spoke.
"According to the painting we will have a time constraint while fighting a construct or a man, who looks like the statues," he shook his head, "I don't know how long we have, all the hourglasses look different. However, if it wasn't simply a metaphor for the time limit there might be a magical construct of the thing hovering over our hands reminding us how much time we have left."
Jain chuckled, "How generous, and also stressful I can imagine." The swordsman waved in the direction of his progression of paintings. "I conclude that the more time we take, to beat the old man, or to gain his acceptance, whichever is needed, the paltrier the reward." His eyes glinted greedily, "However, if we succeed fast enough, our rewards will be much greater."
He suddenly sat down and pulled out his sword, laying it across his knees in a delicate manner, "I guess it's time to make a plan now."
Jaune nodded in agreement and sat down as well listening to what Jain had to say. And he had a lot to say.
"From the paintings we can assume that our enemy will be a humanoid wielding a sword, I also suspect that he will only use the techniques the statues themselves have demonstrated up to this point,the best strategy would b-.."
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