Vivian watched the group critically, letting out a soft sigh when she realized they still weren’t getting it. “The trick to inner peace is to strip away emotion, cultivating discipline and logic. This is why you may have noticed that many of our members meditate.” She gestured at the figures lining the walls of the small room. “And why we prefer arithmetic and planning to the more chaotic jumble of activities enjoyed by the other guilds.”
The woman looked at Riley evenly. “The fire affinity is almost the polar opposite of our craft. The fire mages don’t know the first thing about discipline. They certainly don’t lack enthusiasm, but they only understand how to act recklessly. I’m assuming you’ve seen their training pits?” she asked with a note of rhetorical disdain.
“We have,” Riley agreed. “But I can say that Flare is different. She doesn’t fit in among the fire guild members, and she wants to find a place where she can better serve and protect the city. That seems like an admirable goal.”
Vivian waved dismissively. “Nice words, but here we value actions. For example, look at how I continue to maintain this city even though our guild will receive no thanks for it. The other guilds don’t seem to appreciate how difficult it is to become an earth mage. We have the lowest initiation rate of any of the five guilds in Vaerwald…” Vivian trailed off, her gaze troubled as she watched the emerald energy dancing in the well.
Then her brown eyes lifted and scanned the group in front of her. Her fingers tapped at her lips in thought. “Perhaps I can show you an example. You cannot appreciate our craft unless you experience it yourselves. If one of you passes our trial, I will offer your friend an opportunity to join our guild.”
“Your trial?” Lucas finally spoke up.
Vivian eyed Lucas appraisingly, seeming to look through him for a moment. “Unlike the air mages, our requirements for advancement are a bit more stringent. You won’t find any wine or song here. All earth mages are required to undergo the trial to advance from novice to journeyman. It is similar to an obstacle course I suppose. What do you say? Do you accept my challenge?”
Riley looked at her teammates and was about to volunteer when Ethan spoke up. “I’m made of some pretty tough stuff, lady,” he declared, thumping his mailed chest with a fist. “I can handle your trial.”
“You don’t have to,” Riley said. “This is my quest.”
Ethan just looked at her with a grin. “I’ve been getting bored with all this talking anyway. It’s about time I got to see some action.”
Vivian watched this exchange with an impassive expression. “Fine, then. Let me show you the way to the trial chamber.” As she passed Ethan, she patted him on the shoulder. “You might want to take some time to prepare yourself for this. Our novices usually meditate for several days before undertaking the challenge.”
Ethan snorted at the slender woman as she walked away down the tunnel. Yet Riley noted that some of his bravado had faded. As he watched Vivian walk away, his hand clutched reflexively at his tunic. Riley suspected he might be questioning what he had gotten himself into.
Chapter 14 - Masochistic
Riley was standing on a balcony overlooking a large cave. The room was faintly lit and even her Night Vision had difficulty penetrating the blanket of darkness that hung over the floor of the cavern. Her teammates stood nearby as Vivian fiddled with a rune-inscribed panel along the edge of the balcony. Her fingers darted across the symbols, and they soon lit up in a technicolor display.
Vivian glanced over shoulder after she had accomplished whatever preparations she felt were necessary. “Are you ready?” she asked Ethan with a raised eyebrow.
“Ready for what? You haven’t explained what I’m supposed to do in this trial,” the burly warrior replied, crossing his arms in front of him.
“I suppose you’re right,” Vivian said, cocking her head. “The goal is to get to the finish line. Of course, there are a few rules. Rule number one, you can’t bring any weapons inside with you. Rule number two, you can’t harm any living creatures you encounter in the trial.”
Vivian watched Ethan carefully, her brown eyes seeming to look through him for a moment. “You also won’t be able to die inside the arena. However, we’ve heightened the pain experienced by anyone inside the trial area by 200%, a feature added by our dark magic brothers and sisters before they left the city.” Vivian glanced at Riley knowingly.
“200% pain feedback,” Ethan echoed, his face paling.
“You don’t have to do this,” Riley urged him. “I can run the trial myself.”
“She should be the one doing this anyway!” Emma added in an irritated voice. “This is her stupid mission. I don’t see why you need to get involved.” Lucas just kept his mouth shut, his eyes worried as he watched them bicker.
“I doubt this will be easy,” Riley continued softly, glancing at Emma where she fumed beside Lucas. “If it’s a journeyman level challenged, it’s probably designed for people above level 70.”
Ethan looked even more worried at that comment. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, shaking his arms to relieve some tension. Then he opened his eyes, and a look of determination settled on his face. He pulled his two-handed sword from his back and dropped it to the floor with a metallic clang and began removing his bags and excess equipment.
He looked at his teammates each in turn. “I’m going to do this,” he said sternly.
“Are you sure?” Lucas finally spoke up. He looked uncertain.
“Definitely,” Ethan said, a cocky grin creeping across his face. “I heard that the earth mages were a bunch of wimps anyway,” he added for Vivian’s benefit. This earned him another arched eyebrow from the beautiful mage.
Ethan turned to Vivian. “Can I keep my armor?”
The woman arched an eyebrow at him and smirked. “You can, but I wouldn’t suggest it.”
Riley shook her head in frustration at the earth mage’s unhelpful advice. It was clear to her that Ethan had decided to do this so she might as well help him if she could. “I expect you will need to move quickly,” Riley suggested. “This doesn’t sound like it’s about fighting so much as getting to the end as soon as possible. You will run faster if you aren’t carrying as much weight.”
The warrior nodded. “That makes sense.” He promptly shed his armor until he was dressed in only a loose cloth tunic and trousers. Leather boots still covered his feet, but he would be largely unprotected in the trial.
Vivian watched the warrior impassively, her fingers drumming against the pedestal in front of her. “Are you ready now?” she asked with a faint note of impatience in her voice.
“Yeah, let’s do this,” Ethan said, jumping slightly on his toes in an attempt to pump himself up and calm his nerves.
“Great. Move over to that platform, and we’ll begin,” Vivian instructed, gesturing to a square stone platform along the edge of the balcony. Intricate runes had been inscribed upon the surface, and they glowed green as Vivian tapped at her console.
Ethan walked over and stood on the platform, looking to the earth mage for further instructions. Without any ceremony, Vivian’s hands danced through an intricate pattern atop the control panel, and the platform abruptly lurched before slowly starting its descent. At the same time, green lights illuminated the cavern below.
Riley heard Emma gasp beside her as the trial room came into view. The earth mages had turned the entire bottom portion of the cavern into a series of four sequential rooms that stretched nearly 100 yards. The rooms looked rather benign from Riley’s perspective, but she did notice that they were themed. The first room looked like some sort of dessert with sand lining the bottom of the chamber. A heavy iron door was placed on the wall leading to the next room.
“What is this?” Riley asked Vivian, who stood beside her. The woman’s attention was focused solely on the glowing console before her.
“The trial. I believe I explained that already,” she replied. “I am able to control the rooms from here, and we’ve
designed each enclosure to channel an individual element. As you might imagine, it was difficult to convince the other guilds to help build the structure.”
Riley didn’t have a chance to ask any further questions because the platform finally landed on the floor of the first room with a heavy bang. Ethan stumbled slightly but managed to remain standing. Vivian cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted down into the chamber. “I suggest you start moving!”
Then the mage’s hands flew over the control panel. Fiery geysers suddenly erupted from the floor of the first room, spewing the molten sand into the air. The material swiftly cooled, turning into muddy glass as it hit the ground.
Ethan’s eyes widened, and he sprinted forward. He managed to dodge two of the pillars of flame that exploded around him by lunging out of the way, yet he didn’t quite dodge the third. Molten glass coated the skin of his right arm, and Ethan let out a tortured scream, clawing at his arm to try to remove the substance.
Emma clutched at Lucas anxiously, and Riley glanced at her party menu in worry. She saw Ethan’s health dip, but then the bar immediately refilled. Not understanding what she was seeing, Riley looked back at the room. Ethan’s skin had regrown rapidly, and he stood in place, panting as he stared at his intact arm with an expression that warred between confusion and horror.
“I really do recommend you keep moving,” Vivian called out, her dispassionate voice echoing through the cavern. With a flash of her fingers, panels along the walls of the room slid open. Riley hadn’t noticed the enclosures before, the doors blending in seamlessly with the cave wall. Red imps darted forth, their beady little eyes immediately trained on Ethan. They summoned tiny balls of flame in front of them and then launched them toward the warrior.
A panicked look crossed Ethan’s face, and he raced forward, trying his best to dodge the geysers of flame and the missiles shot by the imps. Flames splashed against his skin, and his cries echoed through the stone cavern as he staggered forward. Somehow he persevered and made it to the heavy steel door on the other side of the room. His hand ripped open the metal panel, and he launched himself forward.
Ethan landed with a splash in the second room. Steam drifted into the air where his body sunk into the water. The second room was essentially an indoor lake. Ethan paused for a second, treading water and relishing the cool sensation of the liquid against his burnt skin before starting to swim toward the door on the other end of the room.
That delay cost him dearly.
“I told you to take this seriously,” Vivian called out.
The water began to tremor and shake, a current forming under the surface. Ethan struggled harder against the flow, his arms cutting the water as he kicked furiously to keep moving forward. Soon waves began to form and crash down on top of him, yet he was still pushing forward ever-so-slowly.
Vivian must have decided that this wasn’t difficult enough because she then released creatures into the room. Riley noticed panels open in the walls, yet she couldn’t see what had emerged. The only thing she noticed was the occasional flash of light in the water as the new creatures honed in on Ethan.
“Swim faster,” Lucas yelled, his eyes on whatever was approaching Ethan.
Soon the flashing creatures were upon the warrior. Ethan screamed and fell under the water for a moment as multiple sparks of light cascaded around him. He came up coughing and spewing water, his arms splashing at the water frantically as he tried to make it to the door.
“What are those things?” Riley asked, watching Ethan fall under the water again.
“Lightning eels,” Vivian said dismissively.
“This is sick,” Emma whispered, covering her mouth with her hand as she watched the scene play out in the room. “What’s the point of this?”
Vivian turned to look at the girl with a thoughtful expression. She looked unaffected by the screams and strangled cries that came from Ethan below them. “I told you already. To obtain inner peace, we must foster mental discipline. Pain, passion, emotion – it’s all merely a distraction. Once you train yourself to remove those impediments, you can attain true clarity.”
The earth magic master turned her gaze back to Ethan. “Your friend can’t die in the trial. He can’t be permanently harmed. You might have also noticed that his stamina is infinite. The only thing stopping him from completing the four rooms is himself. The trial is often used as a way to accelerate our training where meditation and study alone fail.”
Emma’s mouth opened and shut several times as she tried to formulate a response. Riley and Lucas both turned their attention back to Ethan. He had barely managed to make it to the door to the third room. His hand clutched desperately at the metal handle, and he physically dragged himself into the next room, his legs paralyzed by the eels.
Ethan collapsed in the third room and lay twitching on the ground for a long moment. Vivian didn’t relent, her hands once again moving across the control panel. Condensation formed over the room and swiftly grew into a storm cloud. A swift wind began blowing from the direction of the third door.
“Get up, Ethan,” Lucas shouted, his hands cupped to his mouth. Riley was skeptical that his friend could hear him over the raging storm that was growing in the room.
The burly warrior pushed himself slowly to his feet, and the wind whipped at his clothing, pushing him backward. With tremendous effort, he managed to take slow, plodding steps toward the door. His body was tilted into the gale at an angle.
Then the storm shifted. Instead of rain, shards of ice began to drop into the room. With the strong current of air pushing against Ethan, the frozen debris was swiftly turned into jagged missiles. The ice sliced through Ethan’s skin and he grunted in pain as he struggled to keep moving. His skin and tattered clothing were swiftly stained red with blood as he fought to put one foot in front of the other.
“His persistence is remarkable for a novice,” Vivian quietly remarked as she watched Ethan’s progress. “Many don’t make it past the second room on their first try, much less manage to struggle through the third.” Her observation was met with silence from the other three. They watched the warrior trudge forward, his eyes squeezed shut and his arms covering his face.
Ethan’s hand finally grasped the handle of the third door. He held onto the metal like a lifeline as his body was continuously torn apart and re-healed. With a final surge of strength, he managed to heave the door open and push himself through the opening.
Finally, Ethan lay in the fourth and final room. This space looked similar to the rest of the earth guild. The floor was made of polished stone, and green globes of light flitted through the air. The warrior looked up in confusion, likely expecting to be attacked by the wisps. When no painful bolts of energy came, he sighed heavily and began to push himself to his feet.
Vivian shook her head as she watched Ethan, her hands continuing to tap the glowing symbols in front of her. “This is the real challenge,” she said softly. “The other rooms pale in comparison.”
Riley didn’t know how this room could possibly be worse than the last three. Ethan walked forward at a slow shambling pace, and it seemed like he wasn’t experiencing any difficulty. Yet, as she continued to watch, Ethan suddenly stumbled and dropped to one knee. It was as though an invisible hand began to press down on him forcefully. He struggled against the pressure, his chest heaving as he willed himself to move forward. He managed a few more feeble steps before he was again forced to his knees. He was only a few yards from the door.
“What’s happening?” Riley asked, already half expecting the answer.
“I’ve created a miniature gravity well above the fourth room. As your friend moves forward, the weight increases exponentially. The final few inches are the worst,” Vivian replied, her voice tinged with a clinical curiosity as she watched Ethan.
Emma couldn’t speak any longer. Her eyes had teared up watching her friend’s struggle, and she held her hands in front of her mouth. Even Lucas looked on with horror-filled eyes.
> The warrior knelt in place, hovering on his hands and knees without moving for a long moment. Then he began to inch forward at a shuffle. They could see his body tremble under the strain as he crept toward the last door. When he was only two feet away, Ethan abruptly collapsed.
Riley held her breath thinking this was the end. Then she heard Ethan’s voice echo through the room. “Fuck you, Vivian,” he screamed from his prone position. “I’m going to complete this trial!”
Ethan began to edge forward at a crawl, forcing his arms and legs to move through pure force of will. Three inches… two inches… one inch. Blood began to pool under Ethan, parts of his body literally being crushed by the gravitational force in the room. With his last bit of strength, Ethan stretched out a hand toward the final door, his fingertips brushing the metal. Then he passed out.
Chapter 15- Tenacious
Vivian managed to transport Ethan’s body back to the balcony with a few swift manipulations of the control panel. As she watched the earth mage work, Riley couldn’t help but wonder how many people had been knocked unconscious during the trial before the mages decided to build a feature that allowed them to easily retrieve the participants’ bodies.
Ethan was now laying on a stone table in the center of the room while Emma and Lucas hovered over him. The light mage looked at Riley and Vivian with an angry expression. “You should feel terrible,” she said, stabbing her finger at Riley. “He suffered through this torture for the sake of your silly mission. I mean, look at him!”
Riley was looking. Ethan’s body had been healed by whatever spells the trial used to sustain the challengers, and his skin was unblemished. However, his clothing bore evidence to what he had gone through and was now little more than shredded rags. Guilt washed over Riley. That had been a much more trying experience than she had anticipated, and she should have insisted on running the obstacle course herself.
A rumbling chuckle echoed through the room. “Don’t be too hard on her, Emma. I volunteered after all,” Ethan said as he opened his eyes and looked around the room with a slightly disoriented expression.
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