Trial and Flame

by Kevin Murphy

  Before their views of one another were completely blocked by the ice block, Cline smiled appreciatively at his friend.

  In the scant amount of time that exchange had occurred, Roth was already at 50 percent health—he’d missed the 60 percent hand-off. Cline grabbed the scorching orange-red orb with both hands and cried out as he quickly passed it along to Melee. In the few seconds where Cline had held the orb, his HP dropped down to 79 percent.

  Melee had mentally prepared herself this time for the outrageous degree of heat. She gritted and bore the pain of it, eyes shut tight, until seconds later Dakkon snatched the orb from her hands, much as Cline had done from Roth’s.

  [You have been burned for 158 damage.]

  [You have been burned for 166 damage. Remaining HP 746/1,070]

  The pain was unfathomable. Dakkon had suspected that anything so hot would simply come across as a sharp scorching sensation, but he was wrong. The proverbial dial had been cranked to 11 and then some. It felt like he’d dipped both his hands into a primed and ready deep fryer. He expected his hands might melt right down to the bone—but, somehow, they didn’t. Dakkon quickly handed the orb to Roth and immediately returned his hands to the block of ice. When he did so, Dakkon was surprised to see that the ice actually steamed and melted a little at his touch.

  [You have been healed for 455 hit points. Remaining HP 1,070/1,070]

  Mina fired off heals of varying strengths as rapidly as she could, managing the party’s health with care and expert-level precision—but she knew that they couldn’t continue on for much longer. Roth could only hold onto the orb for 10 seconds this time before his health had dropped to 38 percent, prompting Cline to snatch the orb from him and hand it off. There simply wasn’t enough time for Mina to heal everyone.

  “All right,” Mina directed. “One more time around, then pass off the orb toward the second pedestal. We’re at our limit.”

  The orb made its final circuit, passing from Melee to Dakkon, to Roth, to Cline, then back to Melee again. It’s thrumming had grown shrill, and it glowed yellow like the sun.

  “Do it now!” Mina yelled. The party scrambled to comply. Dakkon grabbed the orb from Melee and within two seconds his health dropped from full to 38 percent.

  [You have been burned for 326 damage.]

  [You have been burned for 337 damage. Remaining HP 407/1,070]

  He handed the sphere to Roth who hadn’t fully healed from the previous round. Roth’s health dipped into the red. Cline should have been next up, but he was out of position. Immediately, Dakkon could see why. Cline hadn’t healed at all since the last go around. If he held the orb for another second, he’d be done for.

  Dakkon surged forward, grabbed the radiant orb from Roth’s hands, and—within a second—slammed it down onto the second pedestal where it fused to the metal prongs then instantly liquified, splashing downwards onto the pedestal.

  [You have been burned for 388 damage. Remaining HP 19/1,070]

  Dakkon yanked his hands away, fearing for his life. The heat of the orb had stripped him down to a sliver of his vitality. At about two percent health remaining, holding on for another quarter second could have ended him and failed the trial—and now that it had been completed, there wouldn’t even be a legendary weaponized orb that they could claim as payment for their tribulation.

  Despite the overwhelming pain they’d shared, they’d done it. It was a short ordeal, but a trying one. Dakkon was unable to clench his fingers. His hands still throbbed as an aftereffect of the profuse heat. He channeled his mana down his arms in an attempt to sooth the ache, but he refused to look at his hands until Mina had a chance to heal him. He didn’t particularly want to know what his own seared flesh looked like.

  The orb’s heat must have grown particularly fiendish over those last few seconds. Roth seemed to be in rough shape, too, but the others’ palms and digits weren’t visibly scarred.

  “Damn good job, boys!” Mina celebrated. “A round of drinks on me, for that one!”

  Dakkon knew that in truth, the bulk of the skill required to pass that challenge belonged to Mina. To be effective toward the end, she’d have had to begin casting her heals on those who were holding the stone and finish just after they’d handed it off or there would have been no way they’d all have survived. Still, Dakkon wouldn’t argue with some praise for his suffering. He muttered, “Heal first, please.”

  “Oh, right!” Mina said. “I was so excited I almost forgot!”

  Mina had enough mana for a weak party heal, which she used to minorly soothe the party’s aches. For any further healing to come, she’d first need to regain some mana by using her Treeform skill while in direct sunlight. Luckily for them, the door to clear skies outside was waiting to be opened.

  If anyone had made a note of Cline’s reluctance at the end, they didn’t mention it. Everything had ended up favorably, but Dakkon wondered how things might’ve gone had Roth fallen with the orb. Luckily, that was an outcome they’d managed to avoid.

  Chapter 21: Combat

  Immediately on the other side of the door, the party was greeted with thrice the quantity of bird droppings as had befouled the walkway before.

  “This must be the communal dumping grounds,” Roth said with a weak grin. Despite his injured state, he was trying to make the best of a bad situation.

  “Odd that animals and NPCs and whatnot have to relieve themselves when we don’t,” observed Melee. “I mean, I’m not complaining. No one wants to have to pop a squat mid dungeon crawl, but it does hurt the realism a bit.”

  “Maybe they’ll patch that in,” Dakkon said with a chuckle.

  “Guys,” said Mina. Her tone was much too grave for the current conversation. “We’ve got a bit of an issue.”

  “What’s the problem?” Cline asked, equally serious.

  “Treeform isn’t working,” Mina said. “I’m not sure if it’s the tower—elevation—the stone walkway—or whatever, but I can’t use it here.”

  The party stared at Mina blankly for a moment. They’d just been denied their ticket to free heals.

  “Anyone smuggling an emergency snack stash they’d care to distribute?” Mina asked.

  No one was. Dakkon could produce water, and their canteens had survived, but water was only half of the issue. Healing and regeneration in Chronicle was so fast that you could literally watch your limbs regrow over minutes—the only stipulation was that you had to keep well fed and stay hydrated.

  “Well, let’s just see what the next trial is,” said Melee. “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

  The next room was labeled ‘combat.’

  The mural to its left displayed an image of an individual raising their comparatively miniscule sword against a large, three-headed creature which looked not unlike the legendary Cerberus—the watchdog of the gates to the Underworld.

  “Oh, right,” said Melee. “Of course, this one would be fighting a giant monster. Great.”

  “What’re we gonna do, guys?” Cline asked.

  “Maybe we could…” Dakkon began to say, then cut himself off as he shook his head.

  “Maybe we could what?” Mina asked.

  “Eh, nothing, it was a dumb idea,” Dakkon said.

  “Let’s hear it,” said Melee. “We could use some levity.”

  “I was just thinking that since birds use this as a communal toilet, we might be able to snag a couple and cook them up here,” Dakkon said.

  “Hah!” Roth exclaimed before bursting into a proper fit of laughter. “You want to go bird fishing?”

  “No, I don’t—I mean, I was thinking they might land and Cline could shoot them,” Dakkon said, defensively.

  “How’re we gonna lure the birds close when we’re here? I doubt they’d choose to land here with intruders about,” said Mina. She wasn’t disregarding the idea offhand.

  “You’re not really considering that, are you?” Melee said, shaking her head.

  “Any port in a storm,” Mina said with
a shrug. “I’ll float down for supplies on my cloak before agreeing to march to our collective deaths.”

  “I wasn’t really thinking of the logistics of it, to be honest,” Dakkon said. “It probably won’t work, but maybe the cloak isn’t such a bad idea.” He tried to refocus the topic of conversation. “Cline, how much rope do you have left?”

  “20 meters give or take. Not enough to get down and climb back up,” Cline said, following Dakkon’s line of thought. Then he paused for a minute. “Wait, do we even have to go in there?”

  “Do you want to just give up on the tower after coming so far?” Roth asked.

  “No, I mean, do we have to go in that room, specifically?” Cline clarified.

  “What are you getting at?” asked Dakkon.

  “I mean,” Cline said as he examined the gaps above them on the open-to-air walkway, “maybe we can skip a level?”

  “It’s a tower of trials,” argued Dakkon. “There’s no way we can just skip whichever floor we don’t like.”

  “I mean… are there any rules saying we have to visit every trial?” Cline argued, flatly.

  “Look, I’m all for stretching the rules, but our sole arbiter here is the tower’s magic,” Dakkon reasoned. “I can’t imagine the people who built this place simply overlooked the possibility of just scaling the tower through some other means.”

  “You’ve got a point there,” Mina said. “But, I can’t really see the harm in trying. Who knows how long we’ll be waiting here for a bird to pass by—and jumping down the tower for supplies means we’d have to climb back up here anyway. If we can’t scale the tower at all, then we’d have to start over from scratch, providing the trials even let us.”

  “I say we climb it,” Roth cast his vote.

  “Hell yeah,” Melee added. “Definitely beats the death room.”

  Dakkon wasn’t convinced. On the one hand—if it worked—then that meant the party had just wasted the better part of a full day performing challenges and putting their lives at risk when they could’ve just climbed the damned tower. On the other hand—when it inevitably failed—there would probably be some sort of magically-enacted repercussion. Still, everyone else wanted to try climbing, and they certainly understood the risk.

  “Fine,” Dakkon said. “What’ve we got to lose but time?” If Cline was willing to take the chance, he would, too. Dakkon would just need to keep an eye out for any defenses arming themselves as they tried to cheat the system.

  Eager to put his new gadget to further use, Cline whipped out the Stairs of Stijgen. With a toss through the somewhat narrow opening above the marginally-covered walkway, Cline hooked the clawed end of his magical device onto the edge of the room which housed the combat trial. Then, after a little yank to remove any slack from the tool’s chain links, each link dropped a sturdy metal column beneath it—clanking securely against the stone of the walkway.

  Though Cline was eager to be the guinea pig, Dakkon put a hand on his friend’s shoulder and cautioned him with a meaningful glance. The threat of death was manageable in combat, when skill and cunning could conquer most obstacles. The potential for some age-old magical trap to zap them outright, though, was a different matter entirely. In situations like that, Cline couldn’t lead the way. It was simply too foolhardy.

  Cline’s shoulders fell a bit and he nodded. He’d clearly understood the dangers but was still willing to go up first, regardless. It seemed like, little by little, Cline was taking steps to overcome his fears. He likely regretted freezing up at the critical moment of the last trial. This time, though, acting like a minesweeper without the tools for the job was simply a risk he didn’t need to take. If he didn’t make a stupid bet, he wouldn’t have to win a stupid prize.

  Since Dakkon was now standing in front of the narrow metal staircase, he figured he may as well take the risk upon himself.

  “All right,” Dakkon said as he set his foot upon the first step. “Bets on how long I last?”

  “At least to the roof, I’d wager,” said Melee. “I’ve got five gold to lose.”

  “You’re on, I’m betting it’ll happen when he gets to the other side,” said Roth. “It’s not really cheating until he completely circumvents it.”

  “Deal, you can collect the funds from my cold, dead hands,” Dakkon said. He grimaced while he slowly ascended the thin staircase. Roth’s words ensured that even if he made it to the top, he wouldn’t really feel at ease.

  When he pulled himself onto the roof, nothing happened.

  The roof was hardly visible beneath the disgusting mass of caked-on bird crap. There was no path to travel that he could avoid stepping on it—he could only see spots where it was thinner. It would be easier to never touch the roof directly, or to stand on the raised spots where the buffer was at its thickest. Dakkon didn’t care much about preserving his boots, though, there were bigger matters occupying his thoughts. Still, he took the fact that birds had likely been coming and going on this spot for years untold as a good sign that the tower may very well not just smite him for his impudence.

  “So far, so good,” Dakkon called to the rest of the party. I’m going to walk to the other end. If you see my dagger fly off somewhere, hold onto it for me, will ya?”

  Immediately after his bold words was precisely when Dakkon remembered that a death in Chronicle had another price aside from downtime and the loss of loot. Players tended to respawn at the last inn they’d stepped into. Because of the angrily-glowing red tournament sigil on his forehead which made stealth a tricky proposition, he had opted not to visit the town near Yorvel’s camp. If he died now, who knew where he’d go? It was possible he’d just go back to the camp, he could go all the way back to Klith, or he might even start over at somewhere even less convenient such as Qirim’s house—from the start of their long journey. Suddenly, the thought of dodging hordes of bloodthirsty tournament participants and taking on the long journey alone made his knees weak.

  To step back down and admit weakness to the members of his party was the safe move—why should he take the risk? But, peering out from the side of a tall, magical tower on a cliff overlooking a vast sea of trees beneath a flying castle, of all things, Dakkon found that he really didn’t want to do it. He was firmly in the grasp of fantasy now. To ever have a chance of coming out on top like some kind of mythical hero, he really needed to embrace the absurd. Plus, he didn’t want to look like some chump to the closest friends he had. So, he’d go on, even if it killed him.

  Dakkon inched his way forward, expecting the wrath of the tower with each new footfall. To his surprise, it never came. When he made it to the other side of the chamber’s roof, he dropped down onto the walkway beneath, then muttered to himself, “No way.” After the certainty that he’d be smitten along with the stress he’d endured while walking across the rooftop, he shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t even believe this shit.”

  “What was that?” Cline called ahead. “Any trouble?”

  “You guys aren’t going to believe this!” Dakkon responded.

  “What? It actually worked?” Mina called back.

  “Well, I’m not dead yet!” Dakkon confirmed. “No telling if I can go further, though! Looks like there’s one more door up ahead that we couldn’t see before. Come on over!”

  “You’re right!” yelled Roth. “I don’t believe it! I’m out five gold!”

  One by one, the party walked up the steps—commented on the horrible state of the roof—then dropped over. Jinx wasn’t particularly excited to go back into Roth’s arms after being dragged through five, loud halls of clanging spikes, but a few gentle words from Mina soothed the large wolf’s foul mood. Finally, Cline retracted his magic staircase and tucked it away before he, too, crossed over the roof and dropped down on the other side. There, everyone could see what lay ahead. The walkway they’d been following terminated into the center of the tower itself.

  The group walked up to the wall of the spire. Despite Dakkon’s words, there was no doorw
ay that they could see—nor was there a mural hinting at what lay ahead—but there was an inscription of the sort that they’d grown accustomed to finding above doors which led to new challenges. The inscription read ‘insight.’

  Certain that they were about to face another trial, Dakkon activated his Equis Medallion’s once-daily ability to set his health and mana pools at half of their maximum values. 50 percent ready was still better than not ready at all, he figured. Most importantly, it further restored his scorched hands from their sorry state. Mina’s minor party heal had no doubt helped, but—until the Medallion’s activation—he hadn’t been able to draw his hands fully into fists.

  Melee walked up to the wall. “So, what’s the deal here?” she said as she reached out with the back of her fist to rap on the wall two times in quick succession. On the first hit, she connected cleanly with the wall. On what should’ve been the second, her hand met with no resistance, passing right through the stone.

  Noticing what had happened, Mina kicked herself into gear. “Looks like there’s one last trial, guys. Get in there while the way’s open!” Then, she walked forward into what appeared to be solid stone.

  Everyone followed her inside, not wishing to be stuck on the outside while so close to their goal. If the new area was some sort of trap designed to punish them for skipping a room of the trial, it was a clever and cruel one. Either way, they would know soon enough.

  Once beyond the illusory barrier, the party found they were standing in a hallway with walls made of ash-gray, thick-cut stone. The walls rose from floor to ceiling, held together with a liberal application of grungy-looking mortar. The hallway ended only a few meters ahead of them, where they had the option of going left or right.

  In the center of the hallway there was a single pedestal holding what looked like three fist-sized, circular lollipops. Their sticks were golden, but the sugary bits were each a different, translucent color. One was yellow, another was sky blue, and the last was of some pinkish variety. Upon closer inspection, the lollipops appeared, instead, to be optical lenses affixed to short, golden rods—much like magnifying glasses. They could clearly be seen through. Beneath the round lenses there was a short inscription which read: