2.

Inside the room of dancing shadows a walkway was lined by candles that hovered in mid-air on silver pans where wax had melted over; their flames flicking. Tentatively, Grey walked across the craggy stones and took a deep breath as the too-big simulations robe all the kids had to wear dragged behind him. In his hand he held a small breathing mask and before him he saw the emerald stone steps that lead up to a wide circular pool, its surface a faint turquoise colored stone. He clenched his jaw. He’d never seen the pool before, that wasn’t allowed (the ceremony was sacred) and yet, he had seen it several times in his nightmares, the haunting of his future. He approached the first step and warily looked to his left where the simulations master, a hunched Rodentian with a long furry snout and twitchy whiskers, extended his clawed hand. Between his long fingers he held a mushroom, which had a tall and twisted stem with a wide cap of several overly saturated colors.

“This mushroom I offer you, Grey son of Therena, has been blessed by the Westward Druidic Elves” the Rodentian said, “take it and open your present to the reading of your past and the door to your future.”

Grey stared at it warily. His hands were clammy and he felt like he didn’t much like the idea of eating anything that might force him to see the few glimpses his subconscious never let fade.

“It’s really not that bad,” the Rodentian whispered, leaning so close his whiskers grazed Grey’s head, “I just have to say it that way, the principal is very particular about delivering the ritual words correctly.”

Grey stood silent, that made sense. He gathered together his courage, reached out, and popped the mushroom in his mouth. His face puckered as he chewed it over, and the simulations master sniggered.

“Wash it down with this,” he said, offering a goblet of a bright orange beverage.

Finishing the first introductory to the test, the young man ascended the emerald stairs to the top of the pool and looked into the water. He fit the breathing device as he’d been trained to do. The little mechanism felt like someone had just stuck a piece of tape at the corners of his mouth, then it expanded over his lips and nostrils, and a moment later it felt like nothing was there at all. He awkwardly slid off the robe, undressing himself down to his boxers, stole one last glance at the rat-faced man who nodded encouragingly, and walked into the deep pool. It was a strange cold that seemed to seep into his pores the further he went, and in the middle, it was too deep to stand, but the water was a mixture of magic and solvents that allowed him to float. He’d been told the drill for this, all kids had, and seeing as there was no going back now, he let himself float on his back. And a moment later, he heard the sound of a large slab of granite sliding across the rim of the pool. He took a deep breath through his nose, and then everything was black.

He waited, trying to meditate, but despite all the advice and tips his mother and Damsel had provided, something about keeping his thoughts still just never clicked. He closed his eyes tight, that was supposed to help. And this time it did. Suddenly, a wave crashed over his consciousness; his body thrashed in natural response, then relaxed, and floating there he was pushed into his mind where the simulation took place.

He stood before an endless and dense valley of towering grass that swayed back and forth like seaweed in the depths of the Caltretta Ocean. They were awash of luminescent purples, golds, and blues that seemed to stream fluidly back and forth. Above the valley was a mix of blackness with very small lines of green text, all ones and zeroes. What did that mean, he wondered as curiously as ever; was the mind somehow linked to the Gods or were the numbers something else entirely? Unnerved, he turned and looked behind him, but there was nothing but a dark nothingness.

“I can do this.”

The tall grass parted easily, and he saw it glow in response to his touch as he trekked forward. The journey through felt long, and as he went he could hear an unnerving sound like the magic of electricity all around him; a faint drone that rose in volume, pulsed in golden light throughout each blade of grass, then faded. Although he knew this meant his mind had opened and the pools magic was rewiring the neurons in order to allow what was well-known in Bitworld as the Hero’s Eye (enlightened ability to see what were known as stats, skills, experience, prompts, and a nearly limitless capacity to hold items) it didn’t make it any less uncomfortable.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he approached a rounded hill with a flat front where a circular and engraved stone door was propped. Grey looked over his shoulder, got scolded by the magical pulse waves, sighed, and assessed the structure before him. He looked for a handle of some sort, but there was none. He attempted tracing his fingers along the engravings in several different directions, but nothing happened. Groaning, he searched for any cracks.

“Maybe I just have to rearrange something,” he said, trying to find a crack or some part of the stone he could move aside, but any cracks there didn’t do anything except, be cracks. “Or maybe not.”

Groaning, he wondered what he was supposed to do. He’d heard that tests were different for everyone, but he’d also heard that he should be prepared for any puzzles; but if there was a puzzle, he asked himself, what the hell was it?! He knew he wasn’t as smart as Damsel or anything, but he wasn’t stupid. There’d only been a few puzzles he’d ever come across he couldn’t solve. He glared at the door.

“Most puzzles at least know they’re puzzles!” he yelled, kicking the stone in frustration. Its material instantly dissolved into bright blue particles and he staggered back. “What the. . .”

The way was open, and through it, the scent of rot and mildew came. He tried to waft it away. When the stench subsided, Grey walked past the dusty cloud of filth and into the tomb. An intricate smattering of hallways, lit by small flickering flames bouncing off white bones lining the walls. It was the first step. Grey tentatively walked down the first hallway, awaiting for whatever unholy beast would come around the bend. There was nothing at first. Just an ominous bellowing of the tombs belly. A weak puff of wind blew, dust swirled, and Grey walked in suspense and terror for the test to begin. Every corridor he walked through looked exactly the same. It was impossible to get his bearings. Left, right, straight, no left; he had no sense of direction. The test was offering him no way of knowing where to go next, until he ultimately reached a dead end. A small room with walls on all sides lined in infinite corpses. He looked around in nervous wonder, wondering if he’d taken a wrong turn or if there was some other corridor in the cave where he stood. He searched, and turned toward where he’d come and had no choice but to return that same way. Perhaps take different directions. Right, left, left, no it was a right last time, it was hopeless.

The hallways were constant. There was no map or objective marker for him to follow, he was essentially walking blind. Suspense grew within him, but there was no time to cower in fear, he had to trek on. Wait for something in the test to reveal itself.

The bones along the walls became more dense as he walked. The bellowing became louder. Grey’s fists trembled in fear. There were no weapons around him, or offered to him in the beginning. He reached towards one of the thousands of bones on the wall to perhaps fashion it into some dead sword. Pulling at the skeletal arm, it didn’t budge. Suddenly, the hand wrapped around his forearm. He tried to jump back, but the arm pulled him closer to the wall. Screaming and kicking, the other bones rose from their walled tomb. He yanked his arm until the petrified death finally snapped off; leaving a bony hand dangling on him as he ran. Not sure of where to run, the walls tumbled down and chased him into one direction. Down a hallway to the left. And then the right. Grey’s lungs were full of dust but he ran and ran until the halls opened into a great room. It was pitch black. The death lit hallway behind him crumbled into rumble and sealed behind him. There was nowhere to go. He looked ahead into the deep cavernous belly that awaited him. Light began to crawl up the sides of the damp walls, revealing another horrendous tomb.

Slowly, more began populating on the walls, at first sparse, but with each passing second they multiplied. He clenched his fists, and spun as a great howl echoed throughout. He searched for the sound, and staggered back as he saw, rising from a giant throne made of skulls, a skeleton with the skull of a ram, except the horns encircled its entire head like a crown. It brandished a large sword that erupted into flames.

“How dare you enter my kingdom,” it said in a harrowing voice. The sound traveled throughout, echoing, and as it reverberated off each of the catacomb walls, ghastly luminescent cracks splintered across the tombs. “Die, boy.”

Grey searched frantically for any weapon, cursing the Gods. He ran his hands, scouring across the ground as strange skeletal creatures, not man, not elf, not even orc, but something far more sinister and hideous, sifted through their tombs and swept across the dank floor toward him. Having no weapon, and nothing even so much as an incantation that came to mind, he planted his feet, twisted at the waist, and kicked one of them in its ribcage. Another three, (or was it four?) grabbed him by the shoulders. He drove his elbow back, and kicked as they dragged him toward the front to their king. Grey pressed his feet into the ground as hard as he could, and pushed off the floor with as much strength. With his captors, he fell on his back. They burst into dust, he rolled off, and found something that resembled a bony foot. It wasn’t much but it’d do. He leapt at the nearest skeletal beast with the foot raised overhead. As he swung downward, he felt a burst of power and a vibration around his hand. The room erupted in light, and by the time he’d struck his foe with the foot, he realized, the makeshift weapon had transformed, and in his hand was a great broadsword.

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He could feel the satisfying weight in his hand. The skeletal enemies continued with full force, he swung the great sword and cut through the bones effortlessly with the sharp blade. Steel zinged and clashed as Grey swung the powerful weapon. Defeated enemies lined the damp floor with their dusty residue. Grey felt something within he had never felt before; standing with that great sword, his enemies lie in fear below him, he stood powerful. Staring up at the great beast towering over him, Grey reared the sword back, ready for the next test.

“A sword!?” Mockingly, the beast’s voice boomed and echoed off the walls, “You useless bundles of bones… He’s mine.”

Grey prepared in a sideways stance, ready for whatever was going to be thrown at him. The massive ram beast reared his head back as if to charge, and hellfire spewed from the horns atop his skull. Grey jumped and weaved and dodged as best he could, missing most of the liquid rage. Some of it splashing and stinging his armor-less skin. The sword was useless against such attacks. He looked for an opening, but the liquid fire reigned down too heavily for him to get a jump on the beast. Relentlessly, the attacks continued.

Bounding from rock to rock, opening to opening, Grey’s legs felt powerful beneath him, but his stamina was fleeting. The massive broadsword was heavy and he didn’t know how long he could keep up the ballerina act around the flames.

Fire crashed down. He jumped.

“You useless little boy! There’s nowhere to run. You will be swallowed whole by flames.” The beast laughed as he reared his head back.

Grey leaped onto another rock, but seared his shoes raw as he landed. The rock was so hot it burned his useless sneakers down to the soles and his feet seared on that hot rock. Falling to his back, he looked up at the beast. There was nothing left in the way of his enemy. The sword fell next to him, his legs were exhausted, and the beast reared up for his final attack.

“Now... You’re mine.” The beast delivered a final blow. His horns spawned a hideous spark of fire that erupted into a concentrated ball of hell. Yelling, smoke erupted through his ram snout and he thrusted his head forward, sending the attack towards Grey.

As if time slowed down, the massive ball of hellfire was hurled towards him. He was defenseless. Heat escalated into an unbearable degree as the fire soared closer. One last battle cry, Grey screamed out, closing his eyes, “Ahhhh!” He put his arm up to shield his eyes from the blinding light. His arms suddenly felt heavy. Powerful.

Fire surrounded his small body, but somehow he wasn’t dead. He opened his eyes. The hellfire draped around him like some evil waterfall. A magnificent shield glowed and sparked a beautiful gold hue, protecting him from the attack. It appeared just as the sword did. Without thinking, Grey stood up, and pushed against the shield with the entirety of his body. The beast looked in terror as the young boy fought gallantly against his final blow. The two walked towards each other in a great bout of will. Grey instinctually clasped his sword against the shield, sending the hellfire back from whence it came. The sound of metal and fire exploded throughout the tomb. Sending the bones and dusts flying into a great tornado around them, and the ram beast onto his back. Smoke rose from the hundreds of openings in the beast’s skeletal body. His exposed heart was black, pulsing behind his smoking rib cage.

“No. No! It can’t be.” The beast lay on his back, facing young Grey just 20 feet away from him, who stood with his powerful weapons in hand.

Grey rushed towards the beast. Leaping off of a rock with his singed feet, high into the air, he plunged the broadsword straight into the exposed heart of his foe. The bones from its ribcage splintered like twigs around the powerful sword.

Just as his sword made its final blow, it disappeared from his hand. Then the shield. The slain beast dissipated and evaporated from the cavernous tomb, and the piles of bones followed suit. Grey stood in the cave. Alone. The walls tumbled down in fits of code and emanated in ones and zeroes. The numbers fell, until becoming completely white. Grey stood, eager. Massive letters appeared in front of him.

Congratulations, HERO

Finally. Grey leaned over with hands resting on his knees, still feeling the effects of the bout. He was relieved. The test was over. His Hero Vision was revealed. It was even worse than he originally thought, but, it was over. Grey awaited his next prompt, just as he had read about in his BITtextbooks, but something strange was happening. The prompt. Letters began to flicker. A sort of static animation.

Congalons ERO

He narrowed his eyes as the static echoed in his ears and the display before him shifted again.

Congratulations Hero

You have attained the class of

….. Rog000110ue…

…

Congrat010111. . .W1z0rd

...err01…

Message Error: Misnomer...does not compute...01001011 01100101 01111001

“What the hell?” he whispered, confused. The vision shifted and blurred and after a long run of zeroes and ones another prompt appeared, this one just as exhausting as the first.

Name: Grey

Age: 15

Race: Human

Class: 01001011 01100101 01111001

Level: 01

Reputation: Level 01

Health: 100/100 Khem: 100/100 Stamina: 100

Strength: 13 Attack: 11 Defense: 13

Constitution: 10

Dexterity: 10

Intelligence: 11

Charisma: 04 (try making new friends?)

Abilities:

Deus Ex Machina

Inspect

Skills:

Slash

Shield Bash

{Empty Slot}

{Empty Slot}

He squinted at the superimposed screen for a moment, focusing on the ancient languages of ones and zeroes where there should’ve been a class, then lower at the three corrupted words for source energy: mana, fury, anxt. That was weird, classes only had one.

What’s happening?, he wondered, standing in bewilderment.

His Hero Vision then became a blur of static, then disappeared, and the room itself glitched around him. It fell a still white, empty; he felt a presence there, lurking in the room. It just did not reveal itself. Suddenly, a gut-wrenching scream erupted out in front of him, he clasped his hands over his ears in shock. He yelled, but could not hear the sound of his voice over the ear-stinging wrench of the scream. And then, nothing.

Grey rose from the water of that shallow pool. Splashing as he frantically wiped the water off of his face. He was out of breath. He felt around his body, panicked, but ultimately realized it was all in his mind. The simulation was over. Putting his arms out on the pool walls for balance, Grey caught his breath and counted his good graces from the Gods for his well-being. Whatever that test was, it was more sinister, powerful, than anything he had ever trained for.

The Rodentian Professor ran into the room. His whiskers bounced as he approached young Grey at the surface of the turquoise pool.

“Son, are you alright?” He wrapped a warm cloak around his shoulders.

Grey was a mixture of terror, joy, and most of all, confusion. “Yeah. I mean, I think so. Did I pass the test?”

“Grey,” The Rodentian professor was shadowed by the other professors at the entrance of the small room. All standing over the door which was crumbled into a thousand pieces, “we lost you. There was no way to observe from out here.”

“So I didn’t pass?” he sighed. That would’ve clarified the glitches.

“You don’t understand. I don’t know what happened in there, but whatever it was, it was not controlled by us. You have to believe us. Please. We wouldn’t put you through something like that willingly.” Grey looked at the dancing whiskers on the professor’s face and the magic that rose from the other professors’ spell-drawn staffs and respected weapons. “So that wasn’t the test? What was it?” “Whatever it was, it took over as soon as you went into the pool. It had control. But, the good news is you defeated whatever was in there.”

“So I did pass the test?”

“Damnit Grey, are you listening to me!?” The professor grew frustrated and his snout twitched in an unfriendly manner, “Yes, you passed the test, but you’re in danger. Whatever that was, we had no control over it. A powerful force held the door and we had to cast our way through. Grey…” The professor stopped. Unsure of what to say next to the new classless adventurer.

Finally understanding the fear that lay across the professors faces, Grey’s heart sank into his stomach. His feet were hot. Still seared by the apparently real hellfire that was in the ‘simulation’, “So, the weapons. I have you guys to thank for that?”

All four, including the Rodentian Professor, looked perplexed, “What weapons? Did they appear in the simulation, Grey?”

The professor was eager for answers, Grey responded, “Yeah. I mean, I think? They just kind of fell into my hands. And I, like, felt really powerful. Not, I guess, normal.”

The Rodentian professor grabbed the newly appointed adventurer by the shoulders, and smiled a wide snarl tooth grin, “Grey. I don’t know who, but someone is looking out for you. I guess there is some good news in this after all. Now, I have to ask, what class did the Test pick for you? If it was a sword and shield, I’d speculate Hero.”

“Um,” Grey stammered, unsure of how to respond and far too terrified to formulate a proper explanation to what he himself didn’t have any clue about. “I guess?”

“Hmmm,” the professor said, stroking his chin where the fur hung with a cocked eyebrow. “You are dismissed, Grey. But, be careful.”

With the long cloak given by the professor dragging behind him like a gown, Grey left the simulation room. Walking over the rubble of the tomb door that apparently sealed him in. The professors stood terrified, letting the teenager pass with a safe distance between them. Grey was unsure of the evil surrounding his field test. He had imagined that very day, passing his field test, for years. All with different outcomes: some triumphant, some not so well, and some flat-out embarrassing. But, never like what he had just experienced. All he knew in that moment, drenched by the wet terror from that turquoise pool, was that Grey wanted to see Damsel. And tell his friend about the field test.