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

”Giving you all a good idea,” retorted Gareth. Soon his plan became clear. Gareth placed both boots sideways right on the edge of the platform and then walked back again. Everyone had a pretty clear idea of what Gareth was doing now. He walked back quite ways, needing the runup to really get his speed going. 

Once ready, he took in a deep breath, he bent his knees and let out a long breath, he was ready. Gareth sprinted forward, pushing his legs to the limit for the short distance he had. Right at the edge, Gareth kicked off hard and he flew! It wasnʼt enough to get over the ring all by itself, but Gareth had more than enough forward momentum to keep him moving until he was there. 

Gareth kept himself flattened, trying to get as much ʼspaceʼ as possible to work with. As soon as the ring was ʼtakenʼ he angled himself and tried to move ʼSouth Westʼ towards the next ring… and found it to be rather hard. Dammit. I wish I had some proper way of moving. I better fucking not need these damned gloves I donʼt have the mana for this shit. 

Gareth was making his way over… but it was clear he was going to miss it. Gritting his teeth, Gareth activated the glove once more, losing a huge chunk of mana in the process, to no surprise. Heʼd overshot the ring though. Gareth wanted to curse, but held it in as he managed to just barely angle himself and grab the second ring. 

Keeping his current form and moving North he managed to, relatively slowly, make his way over to the next ring. As he was going, Gareth scanned the sky below him and tried to work out what he was going to do. There was… three? He was pretty sure it was three rings over in the East… and he just didnʼt have the mana to go and get them. Not if he wanted to come all the way back to the West side to finish the round up, and certainly not if he wanted any mana left in the tank for the final round. 

*I canʼt risk it. Iʼm going to have to stick on this side I think. Iʼm losing out on three rings… itʼs still a bit hard to make out from here, but they do seem to be two separate rings close together and the one ʼnextʼ in line. Of course the big ʼfinal ringʼ at the bottom is more than large enough for me to target it regardless of what side Iʼm on… but there are at least two rings on this side, probably three so Iʼm going to stick with it.* 

With the decision made it wasnʼt hard at all to get over the ʼnextʼ ring, at least the next one Gareth was intending to go for. Gareth did keep his gaze on that fourth ring as it passed. Even if he had determined it wasnʼt worth it… it did feel like missing a large opportunity. Gareth sighed, but turned to face the ring in front of him, getting ready to head back South. 

The ring glowed, and it was time. Gareth looked over at the two rings he was giving up, and the temptation to just… use his gloves to get over there was strong. He stamped that down though. It wasnʼt worth it. Heʼd need both gloves to make it, and that would drain him far too much. 

That was when Garethʼs eyes widened. Down at the bottom, the final rings he was going through were in fact THREE rings all bunched up together. It looked more like two rings for quite a long time, but it was actually two rings that were basically touching, and then a third a good distance below that, with the final ring not much lower down. 

Gareth grinned. The gamble had paid off. It was no issue falling through the last four rings, and when he landed, despite the fact he mana had dropped and heʼd missed a whole three rings… Gareth couldnʼt help but feel like heʼd made the correct decision. 

”Gareth has finished the course in a rather clean three minutes and thirty-six seconds,” said Thyme with a bow, ”Of course he did miss three rings along the way, which is a whopping one minute and thirty second penalty, which brings his total for this round up to five minutes and six seconds,” 

*That might sound somewhat bad… but I honestly think it was the right call.*