Moonbound: Reincarnated as a Moon Elf

Noctis found himself in a stone chamber with high and dark walls surrounding him. The path in front of him stretched on towards the other side of the chamber that held a door, presumably to get out of the chamber.

Just in front of the gate, there hung a giant pendulum swinging back and forth slowly, deliberately.

The long path from his position and the gate was divided into grids, initially square and quite wide for the first few meters, but getting more and more compact and strangely shaped as the path went on.

Strange runes were etched on them, glowing a bit bluish faintly, providing some illumination in the dark chamber, enough to just make out the silhouette of the pendulum, but maintaining the dark eerie atmosphere.

'Now what.'

It seemed he had come across yet another challenge with no clear rules or instructions.

Thinking thus, Noctis moved towards the grids on the path, and slowly put a foot on the first grid, looking carefully at the runes etched on them.

Just as he had placed his foot, the runes turned from a faint blue to a deep amber colour, before a cold shock traveled from his foot to his spine, and then his brain, freezing him for a moment before pain struck throughout his body.

Noctis immediately took a few steps back, gritting his teeth tightly and putting his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

Scrunching up his face, Noctis fought through the pain.

After a moment to compose himself he looked towards the pendulum and the gridded path.

'What's with this space and its obsession with freezing me to death.'

He stretched out his limbs, still stiff and cold and took a deep breath before going ahead once again.

This time rather than the runes, Noctis focused on the giant pendulum on the other side.

Left. Right. Left. Right. A simple rhythm.

Noctis understood something and placed his foot, with anxious but resolute heart, on the first grid just as the pendulum hit the left extreme. This time the runes changed to a light green colour and he didn't feel anything.

Noctis sighed a relieved breath before moving on the subsequent grids following the rhythm of the pendulum, a basic cadence drill.

After waking to a distance he felt, indeed he felt first before vision, that the rhythm suddenly changed. The pendulum remained the same but he could listen to another auditory as well as sensory information adding upon it.

'Three-quarters. Waltz… alright nothing too complex still.'

Noctis stepped on swiftly, triplet rhythm, remembering his moves from the many infiltration missions, composed and focused.

Another change occurred a few meters ahead, the grids a little shorter now, barely allowing him to stand on them with both legs.

The pendulum in his vision sped up as beats started being felt from the surroundings. Five beats, then eight. Time signatures staggered. He adapted by mentally looping the steps into paired sets.

A little difficult for his body to adjust to in the current state but manageable.

With measured steps and shifts, Noctis moved until he reached the half-way mark.

From here on the grids collapsed in strange shapes of irregular lengths, meaning, he deduced, he wouldn't have time to stand on a tile and recuperate.

As the rhythm changed once again, Noctis took a breath.

'If the rhythm keeps changing mid-walk…'

Closing his eyes, he tried focusing on what he was feeling as the visual cues became obsolete.

…

The rhythm split. A polyrhythm.

His right side was expected to move in a half-time beat. The left in another.

He hesitated only a second, cursing silently, then went on.

Moving cleanly. It was like running two sets of operations on parallel thought; left side offensive, right side defensive.

Training came back in broken fragments: controlling limbs separately to mimic stuttering in cover or staggering through noise traps.

By the time he reached the distance when the rhythm changed again, sweat already beaded at his neck and back, his body aching from the stretching and jumping along the strangely shaped grids.

His body couldn't keep up with his thoughts. Even in peak state this would take an intense amount of dexterity, now he could only desperately hold on.

But he had to focus on the current situation as it didn't give much rest.

Here, the platform began to hum.

It felt like numerous instruments surrounded the chamber; lyres, drums, flutes, reed pipes.

The beat was no longer steady. It was swelling. Compressing. Then vanishing. Silence between slams. Sharp, then soft. Uneven.

The light-pads beneath his feet pulsed with the same erratic tempo.

Noctis forced swallow down his saliva through his dry throat.

No longer could he mechanically move on memorised beats as it moved and skipped.

It required him to feel every beat and move instantly and accurately.

Noctis moved, feeling and measuring through his stiff muscles, going a few places before a cold spell hit him squarely, stopping his march dead in its tracks as freeze attacked his brain.

He took the wrong step. He didn't know whether his muscles betrayed his commands or he picked the wrong sensation travelling through his stiff body.

No matter as the cold kept assaulting him as the rhythm kept humming.

Gritting his way through the brainfreeze, Noctis moved once again, trail of blood coming out of his nose and ears.

Moments later his calf muscle locked, half a second delay as it landed on a grid.

Another cold shock, much sharper than ones before.

Noctis' balance faltered as he fell upon the path. Cold entered like thousands of crab bites throughout his body.

He felt lightning running along his nerves. Unlike previous passive shocks, these felt like living snakes crawling through his muscles, tearing it apart as he vomited blood out of his mouth.

He felt his fingers, frozen cold, curling intensely as he lost almost all feeling in him.

Panic struck him as he forced himself up before making a run towards the gates on the other side, he needed to be out of here before his whole body got frostbitten.

The cold struck him intensely as Noctis forced his way before suddenly feeling everything around him vanishing into darkness before he felt himself plunging downwards once again.

"Nooooo!"