It was so late by the time I arrived that Edgar wasn’t there to greet me, but an older man that worked for Edgar picked me out of the snow. He was wearing thick, round spectacles and led me to one of the spare bedrooms in the house. It was warm, and the wood they were burning that gave off the colorful place gave off a heady, herbal scent that was almost like a mix of rosemary, clove, and pine.

Accepting the hospitality of a random man who just said he knew Edgar was monumentally stupid, but I was so drained that I just accepted it.

Moving on autopilot, I set up some wards around the room, put the toad on the nightstand – it let out a loud croak and hopped down, moving to cling to the chilly window instead – and put the hex-ermine at the foot of the bed – it scampered over to the low fireplace and sprawled out in front of it, before I finally passed out.

It was a small guest bed in a strange cabin, with only the protection of my basic alarm wards to keep me safe, but after the month of sleeping in the dirt with nothing but a tarp, it was the best night of sleep I’d had in my entire life.

The following morning, I awoke to the smell of bacon and eggs, and wandered downstairs – slowly, since my feet were still tender. I found the old man cooking. The dish he was making wasn’t super familiar to me, some sort of half omelet, half savory crepe. The eggs had been beaten with some flour, then topped with some tomatoes, chives, and bacon, only to be folded and finished in the oven.

My stomach let out a loud, angry rumble, and the man laughed.

“Hungry?” he asked me, and I nodded. The nutrition potions might have taken care of my caloric needs, but they weren’t exactly satisfying. The moment I returned to Mossford, I intended to gorge myself on all the food I could get my hands on – within reason.

“I’ve made plenty,” he said with a smile. “With my age, I don’t eat as much, but I did a three egg version for you, and a one egg for me.”

“Thank you,” I said, nodding. Now that I was more lucid, I ran my senses over the man.

He was a solidly average third gate solar mage, which was strong, but nothing remarkable. His power felt solid from a lifetime of use, rather than something that had been trained to a peak, like comparing the muscles on a farmer to those of a professional athlete. Living this far north, separate from the actual village, his level of power was probably a minimum requirement, though, so it didn’t set off any major alarm bells.

Without Analyze Mana-Garden, I wasn’t able to get an exact feel for what kind of solar mage he was, but even if the man was a full battlemage, I thought I could run from him. I’d won the competition, so I only needed to get far enough to allow me to hide and force open a portal to Dusk. She was distant, but I could probably still manage it in half an hour or so.

He could be veiling his power, but I doubted it. I wasn’t exactly being subtle with my prying, and he gave me a chuckle.

“I’m no danger to you,” he said as he pulled the two pans from the oven. “But I don’t blame you for being cautious. Based on the state you were in, you had a rough time of it on the trail.”

“Blistered my feet, and they got infected,” I said as I shifted my eyes from him to the pan of food. “Also, I seriously messed up my arm. It’s going to need some serious attention, since the muscles will need to be knitted back together.”

The man shook his head and let out a low whistle.

“I do wish Edgar wouldn’t do that to you all,” he said. “Just seems cruel. Even for a trial.”

“I signed up for it,” I said with a sigh. “More than that, actually. I fought a duel for the crystal.”

“Still, I feel like there are kinder ways to go about it.”

“It’s a test of determination and focus, as well as cleverness,” I said.

“I suppose,” the old man said. “By the way, I never caught your name. I’m Tommy.”

“Malachi,” I said.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, and I agreed as he plated the food, and pushed one over to me.

I took a bite, and it was really good! There was a surprising amount of flavor packed into the simple ingredients, and while I’d been uncertain about mixing flour into eggs without actually forming a full crepe batter, it worked out well, adding body to the dish.

We lapsed into silence as we ate, and I did my best to not tear through the dish like a starving wolf. When we finished, I headed over to the sink.

“Oh, you don’t need to do that,” he said. “You’re a guest, and you’ve had a rough time of it.”

“It’s just basic courtesy,” I told him. “Indulge me.”

He grumbled, but took a seat on an old wooden stool, reading through an almanac while I worked on the dishes. Figuring out how to do them with essentially one hand took some finagling and experimentation, but I eventually got the hang of it. When I finished, he pushed up his spectacles, put a bookmark in the book, and set it aside.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting to meet Edgar, then?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” I said. Despite my defense of the trial, it had been pretty horrible, and I was looking forward to it being finished. Not only could I get the mark, but I could also finally advance to third gate.

“He’ll be out in the snow, soaking up the light of dawn,” the man said. “Some spell or another he uses. Never could keep track of all the strange magic Edgar had.”

He trailed off and shook his head, then went to the front to start lacing up his boots. I reluctantly put on my disgusting socks, laced up my own boots, and together we marched out in the snow.

True to the man’s word, Edgar was standing atop the lake, a nexus of solar, lunar, tempest, telluric, and creation energy rushing into him in a vortex that was quite obvious to my mana senses. My cleats let me walk onto the ice, and after a month of practicing, it wasn’t even really difficult.

As I approached, Edgar turned his head to me, then took a step out across the ice. I was worried for a moment that it would crack, and we’d all wind up drowning, but the frozen surface held itself solid. The old man, seeing I had Edgar’s attention, waved his goodbyes and headed towards his home.

“Ah, Malachi,” Edgar said. “It is good to see you. You had me worried towards the end – had your infection not shown signs of abating, I would have pulled you out by force.”

“Thank you,” I said, bowing my head slightly. It was a little humiliating, how close I’d come to complete failure. Arguably, I had failed. I hadn’t done it in under a month, after all.

“Of course,” Edgar said, nodding. “Now, shall we get down to business before I send you back to Puinen?”

“Please,” I said, though I caught something odd at the end of that sentence. “Send me back? You’re not coming?”

“Of the eighty-nine contestants who participated in my trial this year, fifty-four of them were forced to retreat within the first week. The lack of food or water was the most common thing that caused this, as many of them were unable to track down a source that could sustain them, though there were other causes too – a few got caught in a fight they couldn’t win,” Edgar explained.

That wasn’t exactly relevant, but I’d learned that it was best to let people ramble. I might have teased Kene to get to the point, but our relationship made things different.

“Of the thirty-five remaining contestants, twenty-eight of them were forced to retreat over the following three weeks. Once again, food and water were common, but so too were infection, beasts, and exhaustion.”

“That leaves seven left,” I said, trying to make sure I knew he was listening.

“Yes. Three of those had already completed the trail by the time you did. You are the fourth. Three still remain on the trail.”

Edgar let out a slow, weary, sigh while blinking his enormous tortoise eyes.

“I suspect that only one of the last three will make it before I am forced to either pull them from the trail. But still, I will stay here, and I will watch, keeping them as safe as I reasonably can.”

That felt like a really long and convoluted way to say that there were three people people left before he could leave, but who was I to judge the machinations of a two-hundred year old tortoise?

“You can’t abandon your duty, I understand,” I said, nodding, and Edgar dipped his massive head to me, then a smile cracked across his enormous face.

“But onto lighter topics. You must be anxious to hear your score, no?”

“I am curious,” I said. I was really more than curious – he’d hit the nail pretty well on the head with ‘anxious’.

“Seventy-five,” Edgar said, and I let out a sigh of relief. That was a C. Not nearly as bad as I had feared. I’d gotten plenty of C’s in school, and look at me now!

Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best comparison.

But still, a C was far from the worst score I could have gotten! I’d been worried I’d get no mark at all, or that it would be an F or D.

“You gained some points for your ingenuity,” Edgar said. “Especially the physical ingenuity of constructing a backpack out of the tarp and solidified mana. That was a good trick – I’ve seen bindles before, but never a pack. You also gained some extra points for not asking about violence.”

“Wait, what?” I asked, confused, and Edgar let out his low, rumbling laughter.

“Before the trial, little one,” he said. “When I gave you the opportunity to speak to me about the rules – you did not ask if you could use violence against the other competitors, or steal their tarps or enchanted items from them. I approve. It was only a few points, but every little bit helps, no?”

“Thank you,” I said, still a bit caught off guard. That was such a strange thing to award points for.

“We should discuss your actions under the mountain. In truth, I was unaware of the revenant, or I would have freed the small folk before now. But my sight is dim compared to that of which a true occultist holds, and stretched between as many contestants as I need to manage, a single revenant who had not yet broken through to Arcanist had an easy time escaping my gaze. The coblynau’s own wards made it harder still, and when you pierced them with your blessing of the small folk, I was caught quite off guard,” Edgar said. “But you saved a community of people from abuse, defeated a revenant who was threatening to strip the earth bare with unsustainable mining, and all at quite a bit of personal risk to yourself. That gave you many points, but it also caused you to take injuries. ”

“Which caused me to lose all of the points I gained, since I was late?” I half-guessed.

“Not all, but some, certainly,” Edgar said, shifting his head to the left, then to the right. “I deducted ten points for your lateness. You made it a good way, after all, but you were also many days late. Had you arrived early, before the end of the month, you'd have gained several points from an early arrival, and would have scored better on the test. But you've gained the esteem of the small folk, which is not to be underestimated."

That was… Fair. I wished he’d knocked off five less, so I could have gotten a better mark, but I wasn’t going to protest and risk losing points for being whiny.

“Were there any other sources of points or deductions or additions?” I asked.

“Your plucking of three snowdrop opals was a net zero. Had you left them, you would have gained a small amount, and had you taken them all, you would have lost points. But you took a sustainable amount, which I cannot blame you for. Finally, you gained a couple of points for your light hand with the animals – many of your contemporaries simply kill those that they crossed. That is fine, when they hunt for food, but there is no reason every confrontation needs to end in death. But you scared off the winter coyotes, rather than kill them.”

I grinned, suddenly quite glad that I was such a bleeding heart. It had paid out this time. And with the slipshark. And… most of the time, come to think of it.

“I get a C, then?” I asked, and Edgar inclined his head.

“You do indeed. Now, please follow me to my lab…”