Dovik froze, the weight of Pokey falling into his hand as he spotted the depression in the mud. Over the last week and a half, he had made a small hovel of the first dungeon, ranging out daily to clear out the monsters in the surrounding woodland before returning at the end of day. He knew long ago that he was on the precipice of the second rank; killing monsters would not benefit him with any more soul reinforcement until he ascended the second rank. Despite that, he spent every day pushing himself harder than the one before.
An odd shape in the mud, a subtle dipping that hadn’t been there when he left that morning, pulled his attention as he strode toward the gateway. Dovik sent a measure of his mana into the weapon in his hand, preparing to strike immediately at anything amiss inside the walled structure that had become his territory. Fear and suspicion turned to a more complicated emotion when he rounded the inner wall to find a circular disk of shining steel set on the ground near the back entrance of the dungeon. The magical disk was ten feet across, perfectly smooth, and covered in surface geometries so intricate he could only make out a fraction of their purpose. Spellcraft was his trade of choice, and works of marvelous enchantment still surpassed his understanding. He didn’t need to understand the design; he knew to whom the flying disk belonged.
He slid his weapon back into its place on his waist as he came around the first corner of the dungeon’s facade, spotting the square doorway where he shorted the teleportation enchantment more than a week ago so that he could come and go as he pleased. Someone had tampered with his work, reinforcing it with genuine materials that wouldn’t need to be patched every other day. Dovik steeled himself for the confrontation, tossing the sack of fruits he had gathered in the forest aside and splashing his face with a bit of water.
The stone ramp inside the door echoed with the falling of his boots, his intention of being seen made known. A woman sat on her knees in the center of the pedestal room; before her lay the body of Rohinda, covered in a bearskin. Dovik stopped at the bottom of the ramp, watching the woman gaze down at Rohinda, a weathered tiredness hiding behind the redness in the woman’s eyes. She was beautiful, of course she was, but today it would be hard to know at first sight how much power hid inside of this avatar of tenderness. She smiled at Dovik when she turned to him, but that smile tore at his heart.
“I’m sorry, Aunt–” he tried, only to fall silent when she raised her hand.
“No,” she said. The woman stood. She was easily a head taller than he, and her Regalia, like a crown of golden leaves floating above her head, demanded his obedience with any whim she might push upon him. To his knowledge, she never had used such power on him before. Then again, if Crisma Willian wanted something of you, you likely would never realize that you danced by her machinations. “You look so rugged nephew. A few days away from the barber and you fall to pieces.”
“I failed you,” Dovik said. Despite the woman clearly wanting to speak about other matters, the words could not be stopped. “I made a promise to you. I was…I am a failure.”
Crisma stepped forward, wrapping her nephew in an embrace. Wrenching pain churned up his insides, a vice-like grip squeezing his heart, making it hard to breathe. Tears leaked from his eyes and stained the fine material of his aunt’s robes, the salty water turning red on her white clothes.
“My beautiful girl is gone,” Crisma whispered to him. “I do not blame you for that. You are still a child. A clever, powerful, and caring child, but a child still.” She kissed his forehead before stepping away.
When Dovik finished wiping the wetness from his eyes, he found that the body of Rohinda was gone, vanished from the room. “I suppose that I am,” he said, trying to steady his voice. “I am sure that most people look like children to you.”
“No,” Crisma said. “You will make a man of yourself one day. I wait for your rise; it will be a beautiful thing I am certain.”
“I would offer you a drink if I had anything,” Dovik said, feeling suddenly awkward in front of this woman. What could he say? Despite her trying to let him off the hook, he still blamed himself for his cousin’s death. He had promised that he would look out for her. It was hard for him, coming to realize that his promises were so empty.
“I will be leaving soon,” Crisma said. She looked around the room, admiring the murals put into the walls, the history of their guild and the history of the greater humanity rendered in gruesome detail. Crisma’s eyes flicked to the map cut into the center pedestal. “Clever boy,” she said again.
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Dovik looked along the murals, rereading the story depicted another time, though he knew it by heart now. “What exactly are you crediting me with?”
Crisma moved her finger over the scenes, and they seemed to dance to life beneath her attention. “We start at the cradle of humanity, taking our march towards the sea. When we are betrayed and our empire broken, we make our way back to the point of our origin, eventually stopping at the wall, our declaration not to be pushed any further known. When I took the Passage myself, I came to the same conclusion that you did.”
“That must have been a long time ago,” Dovik said eliciting a smirk from his aunt.
“Cheeky boy. A few of our family, privy to the true history since we were small, have been able to piece the clues together this early on. When I took the Passage, I was not so bold as to risk my future on such a small piece of the total puzzle.”
“So, it is true then,” Dovik said, his eyes widening. “The final part of the Passage will happen here, not at the sea. The sea will only be the halfway point.”
“Not entirely correct,” Crisma said, “but under normal circumstances, your understanding would have placed you in front of the largest prize of this test.” Crisma held out her hand, and above her palm appeared a soul cage. The orb of vibrantly blue filigree was made of a metal that Dovik had never before seen in his life, but one of such legendary quality that he knew it immediately.
“Corisbane,” Dovik said, unable to believe his own words. “The guild made a soul cage from something like that.”
“You would need to spend a century roaming the world to find a more perfect housing for ones soul than this,” Crisma said. As she spoke, the could cage rotated in the air above her hand and a green sheen stood out along the surface of the orb. The green came from a scripting so small that it could not be seen clearly with the eyes of even a rank two magician. In the center of the orb, its light peeking through the intricate filigree of its design, a soft orange light pulsed.
“Traditionally, when the competitors reach the sea, they are highly rewarded for their efforts on the other side of the land bridge. If they have managed to make it that far, then they are among the true elite of the generation, and it would do for the guild to make close ties with them. However, as almost always happens, one of the triumphant will carry spite in their heart, pushing them to destroy the bridge behind them as they pass over. The failures will gather at the shoreline, the weight of their own lacking and the hate at having been so unfairly pushed out of the contest wrestling for dominance inside of their souls.
“An opportunity will be presented to those failures that have shown exceptional performance throughout the Passage, a glimmer of hope in the wake of betrayal.” Crisma motioned to the other side of the room, the long march back towards Grim. “Those few exceptions among the youth, those that are still within the bounds of the first rank, will be given the opportunity to take the Passage in reverse. The Retreat from Death will happen, the final destination being here, the first dungeon, with this soul cage as the final prize.”
Triumph at his correct guess and confusion at his aunt’s confession warred against each other in Dovik’s mind. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked. “Is it against the rules for me to have stopped here.”
“No,” she said. “In fact, two others have before done exactly what you are now. Only one actually managed to seize the final prize, their arrogance and ill-preparedness causing them to stumble at the final instant. You have simply managed to catch me as I have come to retrieve the final prize from this location. I have been asked to move it.”
“I caught you, did I?” Dovik asked, looking to the spot where he had first found his aunt kneeling. There had been water on the disk outside, and Dovik clearly remembered the rain having stopped for the day more than three hours before. His finding her here was no accident.
“Indeed. I cannot speak too much about it, but the second half of the Passage, The Retreat from Death, has been canceled. As such, only the initial premise will be conducted, the race to the sea.”
“I’ve wasted my time here then,” Dovik said.
“From what I have seen, you have not been sitting idle. All of the monsters inside of this dungeon are dead. You have made my mission of retrieving the final prize quite easy.” Crisma rested a hand on her nephews shoulder as she stepped up to him.
“I get restless easy,” he said.
“Good.” The woman’s wan smile faded as she looked down at him. Her face grew still, the hand on Dovik’s shoulder heavy. “You will need to move quickly and carefully. Someone, or something, has been muddying the Passage. We do not know who or what has been influencing events, but determining the identity of the interloper has become a top priority. Do not be too trustful of others, Dovik. Things are not clear.”
Before he could speak, she was gone, vanished so completely it was hard to believe she had ever been there. Dovik choked down the swirl of emotions trying to come over him, looking to his pack laying on the ground, all of the possessions that he carried with him inside of this test. The ground was moving on him, the situation that he had thought he grasped just an hour before completely upended.
“So, this is what it feels like to be at the back of the pack.”