Welcome to Gaia! ::

General Information
The course itself is a simple tunnel, reached via portal. Within the tunnel await hundreds of weak, hungry shadowlings. At the other end of the tunnel is another portal, leading back to the course observation booth.

If you fail: your character is KO'd, but there's always a senior hunter in the observation booth with enhanced bandages at the ready.

Mechanics

• You must get through 5 waves of attacks to make it through the tunnel.
  
• Simply roll for attack as you would in battle. (2d8 for Taym)
  
• If you miss, your character falters in their attacking and is overwhelmed by shadowlings.
  
• After 3 successful hits, you may use your weapon's charge attack.
  
  Bonus Mechanics
  
• This bonus is consumable.
  
• The bonus in this course is in the form of "recoveries" ~ these are would-be missed attacks that are quickly recovered and turned into a successful hit. Basically, they can miss once and roll again for an extra try. If you keep consecutively missing, though, and run out of recoveries, it's lights out. These do not equal an automatic pass for a round, you still have to land a successful hit to proceed.
  
  
• Trainees: 0 recovery
  

He had already arrived at the conclusion that everyone on this island was ******** insane, and being startled out of his grim post-breakfast reverie by a none-too-gentle smack and an invitation to casual murder absolutely cemented his opinion on the matter. He choked on the drag he'd been taking.

He'd jumped like he'd been shot at; jumped like a startled animal. And now he held himself all taut and hunched like he was worried Clerise might bite him, or suddenly give chase, and he was looking at her from under his eyebrows with all the wariness of a feral cat. And yeah, he did feel murderous, but it was obvious that the only thing he felt like killing at this particular instant was whoever'd interrupted his smoke: the only blessed mundane ritual he had.

"Good ******** morning to you too," he hazarded, not feeling as drily witty as he'd wanted to and instead sounding petulant. "I think I might have misheard you."

She got a look over in return, and although his face was totally unreadable, his thoughts were privately running along a path of "not bad" as well, with somewhat more enthusiasm. Red hair, even. Too bad about that laugh. And the general... obvious, low-level insanity, although maybe you couldn't help that once you'd been here long enough.

"So new I don't even know what the ******** you're talking about," he answered flatly, putting his cigarette out on the wall and stripping the butt off to shove it in his pocket. "Have the feeling I'm going to find out, though. I'm going to assume it's futile for me to resist?" Not that he wanted to, not really. It was early and he'd barely slept and barely eaten but he desperately wanted something to do, something to keep him busy.

He let himself get dragged along for a bit, too startled to really protest, but he made an effort to shake himself loose by the time she got done talking. He kept going, though. He couldn't put this s**t off forever.

He didn't say anything for a long time, just tagged along at a slinking hunched-over lope, and when he did his voice was full of suspicion.

"Fun? Exactly what kind of creatures from the beyond are we talking about? And who are you, exactly?"

He wasn't ready for this. No, not like metaphorically, like he wasn't ready for this, he'd thought there'd be a warmup, or a lecture, or an orientation, or something, instead of plunging straight into a seething mass of shadowlings. Instead it actually took a sharp Sir! in his head for him to even remember, oh right, I have a sharp object like she has (or not exactly like she has), I can use--

Nope. Too late. He had a brief, not unattractive vision of Clerise going HAM, and then failure.

Someone other than Taym might have used the term "Zerg rush." Taym didn't know what a Zerg was or what it might rush or why.

He was pissed now, though. Not pissed enough to be hypereffective, but pissed enough that he had the presence of mind to summon Fionnghal, the weight sudden and reassuring in his hand, and almost distractedly bat off a handful of lingering shadowlings while he struggled to his feet.

"Who the ******** are you?" he demanded, looking like he wanted to turn the blade on her more than anything. "This is your idea of a good time?"

"You just said it was fun!" he protested. "Like a minute and a half ago!" He was so busy bitching at her he didn't have time to take note of what his arms were doing, and they apparently did pretty well on their own. That wary-animal aura served him well when he wasn't thinking too hard about leashing it, and he moved surprisingly nimbly, with a bony, stiff-jointed lack of grace that put one in mind of a twitchy spider.

"If you were looking for something to do you could have suggested the pumping iron." With those arms? ha! "Or the girlfriend," he added, because he couldn't help it.

She looked at Taym, humming to herself, and promptly flung both of her sickle scythes behind her. They flew threw the air, rotating like little chopper blades, chopping up monsters behind her.

"Oh." She scratched the back of her head, and then shrugged sheepishly. "Listen, dude. I've got, like, the shortest attention span. You'd probably insult a goldfish if you compared my mind to its. But hey, see! Now you're killing things like you're supposed to instead of being a whiny baby!"

Clerise threw the horns in his direction, nodding he head appreciatively.

"Are you even capable of lifting? Do you lift a toothpick and some marshmallows, is that how that rolls? Do you have to do the cheaty kind of pushups, where you use your knees?"

A suspicious whizzing sound came through her ears, but Clerise opted to continue ribbing the newbie. Even if he was actually doing pretty good right now!

"Nah, dude, I used to do that, but we're not that sharey anymore, I mean, I don't really know you and--"

THUMP. THUMP.

Her sickles had come back to clock her right in the back of the head, one after another. Knees buckling, Clerise resorted to an interlude of creative swearing, and smacking her sickles against the ground as if that could hurt them.

(It could not.)

"Jesus ********, ow, why, god, why do I keep using this move, ******** s**t, it's so cool and kills so much but oh god, why, ow, s**t, ********, why-"