Kaldalis took a bare moment before the Assassin engaged to try and assess his options. He was resigned to standing his ground and fighting, but all he had to do was stall for time until Jump was off cooldown.

Ninety seconds was a long fight, though, when it was between two humans. He feared that someone might be dead before he could Jump away.

Kaldalis didn’t want to kill anyone. After facing Haldir’s sister, he didn’t want to make another broken home. When he’d killed Onirioago it had been his only option, and he still hated himself for it. Demriv’s apparent suicide had been blunted by the knowledge that she might come back.

But this guy? He was probably a professional hitter bought by Demriv. He likely had a bucket of crescents in lieu of the ability to respawn after death. He likely had a family counting on that income.

The assassin didn’t engage in any banal trivialities. Kaldalis had expected - or hoped - that he might be able to stall for time with a quick exchange of witty banter. It was the sort of thing that would happen regularly in a videogame. A few smartass remarks about why he was about to die, a fun exchange of threats and counter-threats, and maybe an opportunity to buy the assassin off with a better offer that he could never afford.

Instead, the man came in with a vicious swing of his War Weapon staff as soon as he was within reach. Kaldalis blocked it with the haft of his spear, but the weapon reversed direction around and the other end of it caught him in the hip. It didn’t strike with bone-breaking force, but it hurt like a bitch. Kaldalis whirled his spear in his hands, sweeping the blade down towards the assassin’s face. The man deftly leaned back and avoided the strike, but it still cut a notch into the obscuring hood.

The notch let a little bit of light into the shadows under the hood, revealing a wedge of jawline. It didn’t reveal his skin tone, but it showed that he had a coarse beard under the shadowy cover.

“This doesn’t have to be this way,” Kaldalis said quickly. He whirled his spear around to catch the next attack before it could crack him on the chin, and then darted back before the follow-up could catch him in the ribs. “We can just talk this out, can’t we?”

“I don’t know,” the man said, every word carrying the smirk that lurked beneath his hood, “how did talking it out end for Demriv?”

Kaldalis grimaced. He didn’t have time to think of a proper response before the assassin lunged again. The wind whistled through the holes in the hollow staff as it came in at Kaldalis’s head. He ducked under the blow, but another was hot on its heels as the man spun the weapon over his head. This strike came straight down, forcing Kaldalis to throw himself to the left, staggering off-balance away from his attacker.

“That weapon is just wild, man,” Kaldalis said, trying to change the subject and stall for time. “A giant flute? Isn’t that unwieldy? And how does it hurt so much if it’s hollow?”

“How about yours?” the assassin shot back. He didn’t let the banter slow him, and the dark red war weapon staff whistled through the air again, forcing Kaldalis back. “Pretty slick-looking. How did you get it?”

Kaldalis just kept backpedaling. He didn’t need to fight, he just had to drag it out. Just the same, the assassin’s words were throwing off his concentration. This guy knew just how to twist the knife.

The question was who had given the knife to him in the first place.

“Who hired you?” Kaldalis demanded. “And for what? I know it wasn’t Demriv, because the only reason you’d know what happened is if you were there. And if you were there, it means you watched me kill your employer and didn’t try to kill me when I was walking away.”

“She didn’t pay for protection,” the assassin said. The man suddenly grew faster on his feet, no doubt activating a movement ability. “And she didn’t hire me to kill you, either.”

Despite that, he lunged in and aimed for Kaldalis’s head. An obvious killshot. The movement speed bonus meant that Kaldalis couldn’t escape. The man was able to get in too close , and Kaldalis had to catch the whistling swing of the weapon of the haft of his own. The metal of his spear made a tinny ringing noise at the impact. The blow rattled up Kaldalis’s arms, but he didn’t have time to recover before the next strike came in. He was barely able to parry the strike aimed at his gut, directing it down and away from himself.

His wrists and elbows were going numb from the impacts already, but he couldn’t get any space to breathe. The assassin was right on top of him, and the staff blurred as it swept back and forth and up and down. Kaldalis managed to bob and weave to keep from getting cracked in the head - remembering well what had happened last time - but he could only block so many of the bodyshots. He was absorbing more damage than he was comfortable with. If it weren’t for his inflated Vigor stat, he would likely have a half-dozen broken bones, instead of a bunch of sore spots and bruises.

He couldn’t keep up. He still had a little over a minute before he could jump away. Staying on the defensive was just going to get him killed.

Despite his best intentions, he lashed out.

He let the next attack he blocked give his spear momentum. Instead of stopping the blow dead, he softened it and turned the assassin’s own strength into a thrust of his spear, driving the tip of it forward and down. Unexpectedly, he caught the man in the thigh. As sudden as the attack was, he moved fast to pull away, and instead of a debilitating perforation, it became a scratch that barely parted the leather armor and drew blood.

“Finally,” the man said, giving his staff a whirling flourish. The weapon whistled in a piercing tone. “Show me the bloodlust she told me about. Half the reason I took this job was to stop from going soft.”

“What fucking bloodlust?” Kaldalis spat. “I don’t want to kill you. I don’t even want to fight you!”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.” The assassin lunged in with his staff spinning. Kaldalis ducked under the attack just barely. He felt the wind of its whistling passage on his horns. “You’ve got fight in you. Let me see it. Remind me why I got into this line of work, and maybe I’ll let you live. Once you’ve missed your deadline.”

Kaldalis found his attention drawn to the side of his vision, where the timer for the trial ticked down. It was a distraction. The staff came around and caught him high on the shoulder, with enough force to send him staggering off-balance. The follow-up was hot on its heels, and Kaldalis barely stopped the blow before it cracked into his throat. He twisted his weapon from block to attack, sweeping the head of the spear around in a wide arc. He was trying to ward the assassin away, but while the man darted out of reach, the move speed of his ability let him slip right back into melee before Kaldalis could disengage. Not that he could run anyway. But he wanted to sweep the weapon back and forth like a crazy person to draw out the few dozen seconds he had left.

Looking at the timer for the trial had done him some good, though. With his attention so sharply focused on his jump cooldown, seeing the trial countdown made him realize that his cooldown was ticking slightly faster than realtime. His war weapon had cooldown reduction on it, and having it equipped was speeding up his Jump cooldown.

And after crafting a few dozen random charms for skill, a handful of them had cooldown reduction as well.

Kaldalis let the next strike hit him in the chest, and kicked backwards. The combined force of the blow and his unempowered Jump sent him tumbling back, and he quickly reached the edge of the roof. The assassin was on top of him again in a flash, but Kaldalis activated Slowfall and stepped back off the roof. He descended down into a narrow alleyway, meaning he couldn’t hope for any random good samaritan walking by to help him out, but the fall meant that his foe would be unable to attack him for a few seconds. As expected, the assassin leaped off after him and dropped straight to the ground, positioning to catch Kaldalis with a baseball-bat swing of the staff. But Slowfall meant that Kaldalis could quickly scramble his equipment to get his slots filled with cooldown reduction charms. Each one was only a few fractional percentage points, but they added up - along with the spear - to a much more tangible increase in the ticking of his cooldown. The cooldown read that he was down to forty-five seconds, but he hoped it wasn’t wishful thinking to expect it to be closer to thirty seconds.

The accountant part of his brain told him that it was absolutely wishful thinking, and that he could expect it to be closer to forty-two seconds. But considering his situation, he needed desperately to keep himself from falling into despair. He couldn’t fight if he thought he was doomed.

The assassin struck as soon as Kaldalis was in reach, sweeping the staff upwards. Kaldalis caught the attack with his feet, rather than his shins or ankles, and used it to supply a little more upward momentum. It hurt the soles of his feet, but the way slowfall seemed to reduce his apparent weight meant that he was able to turn more of the blow into upward momentum than bruising force. It bought him a few more seconds to come down again.

He was able to reach the ground this time, before the assassin rushed him again. The spinning staff was relentless, but Kaldalis knew he needed to focus on counterattacking. He still had to buy so much time.

Fortunately, his spear skill seemed to impart upon him enough knowledge to keep the spear moving properly. He found himself matching the assassin’s whirling attacks, making the same movements and motions to manipulate his weapon. If he weren’t physically inhabiting this body, he would have called it lazy animation reuse by Monsoon, but it didn’t feel that way when it was his own hands manipulating making those motions. It felt like he was learning by doing, and learning from demonstration. He was moving the weapon that way because his foe was showing him this fighting style, and the weapons were similar enough to apply the same principles optimally.

Unlike when he fought monsters, this fighting style was about maximizing efficiency in a way he had never needed to. The force of the strike affected how much damage you dealt, and it was absolutely necessary to avoid standing and trading blow-for-blow because any one strike could be fatal if it landed on the right soft spot. Whenever Kal struck, the assassin moved quickly and efficiently to avoid the sharp edge of the Baleful weapon, and Kaldalis found himself mimicking those movements when the staff came back in turn.

The offense was just what he needed to turn the tables, though. Suddenly presenting a threat made the assassin slow down his own assault. Despite his words about going soft and needing to have a real exciting fight, the man became defensive. That didn’t mean that he suddenly became no threat. He moved like an eager dance partner, staying close in to Kal, maneuvering around him to keep him from having any opportunity to escape. It wasn’t a dervish of death so much as it was a wall of pain. A steady stream of blows from behind an impenetrable defense. The ideal pattern for an assassin who was prepared to outlast his foe and force them to make a desperate mistake.

A horribly mismatched strategy for what Kaldalis had planned.

Jump ticked over, the cooldown hitting 0:00 and becoming ready for activation again. Kaldalis made one big sweeping strike to buy himself some space, and the assassin backed off. Something in his body language must have given away that Jump was ready again, because the assassin reacted accordingly, as if it was already active.

“You think you’re getting away?” the man asked with audible confidence.

“You think you’re stopping me?” Kaldalis asked, trying to match his energy.

Kaldalis didn’t just activate Jump.

He used Nyxlas’s Augment first, burning off a bunch of hit points.

The way PvP combat depended on physical wounds and not hit points meant that he had plenty to spare. As soon as he activated Jump, the Assassin activated a movement ability that let him swarm up the alley wall, presumably moving to swat Kaldalis down out of the air when he leaped up out of the alley.

But Kaldalis didn’t leap up.

He rocketed up.