After lunch, on the way back to begin what Isa had called the Path again, Maiz thought of Hakim.

It hit him, finally, that he'd been thinking about a dead man. A man who wouldn’t whack Maiz over the head with magic again, or startle him from behind. Maiz hadn’t known Hakim particularly well, but the old man had quickly and almost insidiously become a pillar of strength in his mind. He hadn’t been nearly as surprised as he rightly should have been at the Aeromancer’s secret Master status, simply because he had never met anyone with the man’s immutable competence before. And now he was dead.

It was frankly ridiculous that this should be hitting him now of all times. Maiz had known about what had happened to Hakim for days at this point. Granted, he had spent a few of those delirious from dehydration and the rest in fear of death, but still. It didn’t feel quite fair, somehow. And the feeling was excacerbated by the fact he didn’t quite feel the grief he’d expected. Losing his father had felt like having the world fall away beneath his feet. Accompanied with the complete loss of everything he knew and his own overnight enslavement, he had come very, very close to complete collapse. But Hakim’s death was simply something that had...happened. Though it was during a massive upheaval in Maiz's life, the death itself had been somehing distant from him, and now, when he was really thinking about what had happened, he just felt empty and a little lost. Most of that, he thought, was a reaction to his lack of true grief. True, he had sworn service to a god many considered evil in a heartbeat, but Maiz wasn’t a monster. He didn’t want to be.

Moving forward was the way. He was standing before an impossible room in an impossible place with an impossible task before him. This was the path Hakim had set him on, and it aligned with the one he'd decided to walk himself. No matter his motivations, it was time to get stronger. Perhaps he could learn whatever Hakim had intended as he did so. Maybe once he did, Maiz could grieve properly.

Maiz rubbed his own shoulders absently as he came upon the door. They hurt, as did most of his body. The only bit of comfort he had was his full belly, and even that was undermined by his contemplation moments before. He felt as though everything above his knees woud turn black and purple by the next morning, but the pain was a small price to pay for good training, and that was what this 'Path' promised. With single, tired puff of breath through his nostrils, he pushed open the door.

He broke into a flat run, calling up his Mana Sense as he did. The world was lit up in a myriad of colors, include a sky blue that was very familiar to Maiz. He ran across the beam, then began moving through the maze, ducking, dodging, and veering around traps at an almost absurd speed. He’d better have, at this point.

In a bare few minutes, he reached the room with the inscribed floor. Not sparing any time, he stepped into the square, and began. Here, he ran at a measured pace, well ahead of the fire but not even as fast as that first young Warrior Monk he’d seen complete the challenge. He navigated each turn, not flinching when the fire seemed close, and made it to the door without issue. And then he ducked.

A wooden polearm covered in carvings swept through the space where his head had been, and Maiz popped up without missing a beat. All right. Maiz’s vision, both physical and magical, was crowded by motion, spinning wooden posts moving in set paths all around the room and positively soaked in multicolored mana. They created a dizzying tableau that left him uncertain of anything past a meter from his position. The posts moved in an impossibly intricate pattern, each one a different height, some changing speeds at random moments, others stopping for no apparent reason. It was the ultimate test of Agility, Dexterity, and Intelligence, all wrapped into one. Maiz ducked again as the same post came back the other way, arm spinning towards his head.

Before he could straighten his back however, Maiz caught a flash of unexpected movement at his side. He turned, and saw the trailing end of a white tunic as he stood once again. I can’t believe I missed the door opening. Can’t let that happen again. Indeed, there was a tall young man with a lean build standing among the posts. He was weaving in between the spinning poles with exceptional grace, and Maiz quickly turned on his Mana Sense again, trying hard to filter out the interference from all of the magic in the room. It was almost impossible to discern, but he caught a diffuse pale yellow, a color otherwise not present in the enchantments. Interesting. This was not a mage, then, or a Warrior Monk.

The unknown combatant hadn’t gone very far: many of his motions were sideteps or even shuffles backwards, each taking him just out of reach of the polearms. As Maiz dismissed his Mana Sense, the young man took a hopping step forward, neatly vaulting a waist-height length of wood without apparent effort. Perhaps he was an Apprentice or Journeyman, with attributes like those. He moved with practiced grace, flowing like sand fell as he wove in between the posts. Soon, Maiz could only catch glimpses of white between the swinging arms, and as he ducked again to avoid the pole, he completely lost sight of the other young man.

Did he get it? Or…

Either way, Maiz was getting tired of ducking. If he can do it, so can I. No matter that Maiz had been working at this room for a good hour, ever since he’d figured out the previous one. He took a practiced step forward as the next post in line passed him, then hopped to the side to avoid another post that would have smacked him in the ribs. Ducking again, he darted under another post and then immediately hopped over one aimed at his thigh. But as he landed, a flash of pain registered from his back, and suddenly he was in front of a stone door again.

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Maiz groaned, awkwardly attempting to massage his back. It felt as though every part of his body from his thighs up had been subjected to a beating administered by a thousand children. No single blow was particularly debilitating, even for an untitled individual, but in aggregate they made him feel like he’d been to the Abyss and back.Yet this was much how he’d felt after his first few days in the training grounds. And he had such a very long way to go. He pushed open the door, and began again.

Maiz ran quickly, breath coming in measured bursts. He sped across the wooden beam, feeling as though his feet barely touched the ground. Then he moved on to the maze, not pausing as he neatly avoided every trap, and glorying a little in the ease a which he could move through this section. However, with a somewhat jarring jerk, he stopped short before a wire net trap laid on the floor, looking in confusion down the hall. The young man from earlier was there, walking down the hall. So he hadn’t made it through the post room after all?

Though Maiz paused to look at the man, he didn’t do the same, and he moved with a deceptive speed that likely came from a balance of Agility and Dexterity. Maiz hopped over the net trap and began running again, but though he managed to catch up with the other challenger, he couldn’t pass him. Maiz didn’t say anything, and the stranger also didn’t acknowledge Maiz’s presence at all. It felt a bit like going to an outhouse at the same time as someone else; it was easier to just pretend the other person wasn’t there and go about your business. Eventually they both reached the end of the maze without incident.

In the patterned room, the man jumped into the square and immediately begin running at an impressive speed, navigating each turn with easy ability. Once he was through the door, Maiz also hopped down and ran the course, though with much less grace and speed. He made it through to the other room, expecting not to see the other combatant or to find them in the middle of dodging through the posts. Instead Maiz almost knocked into the young man as he entered the room. They both sidestepped in either direction, neither saying a word, though Maiz’s heart had squeezed for a moment at the shock. Maiz ducked as the wooden arm swung by a second later, and saw the other challenger sway backwards to avoid the hazard without ducking. The young man’s gaze was focused intently on the room in front of him, eyes seeming to calculate a hundred paths through the spinning obstacles.

After what felt like an interminable stretch of time where the young man stared at the room and Maiz copied him, Maiz thought back to something he’d discussed with Hugan and Lila. It had been directly after the Dungeon run, and Maiz had been rather disappointed in his own lack of foresight in not preparing for the encounter. He’d voiced the opinion to Lila, who’d laughed in his face. A moment later, Hugan joined her. They’d both said, in varying levels of vocabulary and reasoning, that sometimes you just needed to do something to learn about it. Maiz had thought about it, and decided that, whatever they said, there was no harm in preparing for important things ahead of time. But in this case, they might have been right.

Maiz took a determined step after the wooden arm swung over his head, beginning his frantic dance through the arms, and getting a little further than he had the last time. He hopped over one post and immediately sidestepped as another came at his back. Then he squeezed between two arms that were moving towards each other slowly, turning sidewards to do so. Almost involuntarily, Maiz’s eyes snapped to the other young man, standing with silent pride by the door. He had a hand over his eyes. Wha--

“Godsdammit.” Maiz actually swore aloud as the first door reappeared in front of his vision and a new pain blossomed on his shoulder. But a large part of him was also curious at the actions of the other young man. Why had he covered his eyes? Maiz decided to think about it while he found somewhere to… lighten his load.

After politely interrogating a Temple Acolyte and managing to avoid getting lost in the winding corridors of the Temple, Maiz returned to the door. He’d come to the conclusion that the other young man hadn’t wanted to see if Maiz made it through the room, most likely because he wanted to figure it out himself. Admirable, if Maiz was being honest. After all, the point of this exercise, for him at least, was only self improvement. What was the point of cheating himself of the opportunity to learn?

Maiz pushed open the door, and flew through the first three rooms. He imagined how Hakim ould have done this--probably by flying or teleporting or something equall unfair. Had the old Aeromancer actually been to this place, or just sent Maiz to it on reputation? Had he figured a way through the storm of spinning wood?

When Maiz entered the next room, the other young man was still there, eyes surveying the chaos before him, swaying like a stalk of grass in response to the single pole closest to the door. In fact, the whole thing seemed like a representation of a windy forest. If the artist who made it had eaten some bad herbs. Choosing to forgoe the useless staring at the challenge before him, Maiz stepped forward.

He made it past two sets of spinning poles, finding himself in a spot where he could somewhat rest, only having to move side to side occasionally. Idly, he looked back at the other young man. There he stood, hand over his eyes like a strange salute. Very honorable and proud.

And incredibly stupid.

As he realized the truth, Maiz couldn't stop the laugh from escaping his lips, and he almost missed the next sidestep. The young man made no sign he had heard, which Maiz only thought made it a little funnier. After all, how many times had he attempted to clear this room, to be so good at it? Maiz himself had spent a day on it, which was only enough to appreciate how difficult dodging every single pole was. As well as how disgustingly easy it was to get past them.

Maiz dropped to the floor, lying flat on his stomach. The pole he’d been dodging swung overhead. He turned around on his belly until his eyes were facing forward. The insane dance of the posts and the protruding poles was eye-catching, mesmerizing. But it was overshadowed, at this angle, by the clear view to the end of the room underneath it. Maiz’s bruises, all of them above the knee, seemed to pulse in mockery. This wasn’t a test of Agility or Dexterity, or even Intelligence. This was about Wisdom.

Maiz crawled forward. It wasn’t particularly glorious, not the sort of thing he’d read about in myths or histories, but he found he didn’t care about that very much when he made it to the other side unscathed.