It wasn’t difficult to find the building in which the Agoge took place, even without the directions written upon their flyer. It was, in fact, the very one serving as the heart of the city, around which the mercantile district opulently sprawled.

The largest spire in all of Talos.

It shone like burnished glass, like a massive Entropic crystal, glistening bright blue and rising hundreds of stories into the air. At its midpoint was a glowing green gem that crackled and pulsed with energy, so powerfully I could feel it with my affinity to Lightning.

Indeed, even if the pamphlet hadn’t given me directions, even if the megalith itself hadn’t been so visually stunning, I could’ve found it by the sheer quantity of Blessed alone. They swarmed about it in massive lines, walking in and out and all around it, their conversation raising a considerable din in the brisk spring air.

There were so many that I couldn’t even hear them all.

There were armored knights shining in prismatic colors, myriad particles sizzling the air around them. There were archers and rogues in sleek, smooth leathers with countless pouches no doubt concealing all manner of Entropic curios. There were mages bedecked in arcane robes that glowed brilliantly against the bright light of the midday sun. There must have been thousands of them all.

The song poured off them in a great tsunami, washing up and over me, nearly swallowing me whole.

It was impossible to hear any one of them individually over the noise, and difficult even to keep my bearings within the maelstrom of Entropic power. Yet, despite my floundering, I felt my own song reach out without my consent or prompting, pulling on a number of Blessings from afar, drawing towards me those songs that resonated with my own.

My mind burned, my soul churned, and my save slots began to quickly fill.

~~~

Cache

Attunement: Personal Storage 8

…

~~~

Teuton

Attunement: Haemokinetic Enhancement 11

…

~~~

Reflex

Attunement: Bullet Time 7

…

~~~

Conjure

Attunement: Prestidigitation 9

…

~~~

Wendigo

Attunement: Discretionary Mutation 13

…

~~~

The songs of kindred Shards knocked into me brutally, pummeling me with phantom sounds and occult visions and spectral sensations, warping my perception of reality, far too much for me to handle all at once. I grit my teeth as blood leaked from my nostrils, wiping it frantically on my self-cleaning clothing so as not to raise alarm.

After what felt like an eternity, I staggered through the slim, sliding glass doors that separated the interior of the monolith from the throng outside it, and gasped for air.

This wouldn’t do. This couldn’t go on.

I refused to be crippled every time I entered a crowded room. ADMINISTRATION was the cause, via the Shardsong, and I needed desperately to better understand my primary Blessing, to learn how to communicate with it as I had my others. This was worse than an inconvenience; I’d be interacting with countless Blessed for the foreseeable future, and I couldn’t risk being crippled like this when it could cost me my life. But, try as I might, neither could I chastise it.

Because ADMINISTRATION wasn’t like my other Blessings.

Draconic Blood, Flash Step, and particularly Fang, were eager to serve. They obeyed my commands without question, without hesitation, near instantaneously. I was the Lord, the King, the Sovereign, and they took to submission as if it was only proper. But ADMINISTRATION was different.

It was haughty, lofty, aloof. It wasn’t my subject. We were barely even equals. It lent me respect, but even that was professional, perfunctory. It didn’t admire me, as my other Shards did. Back when Gauge, the gatekeeper Blessed, used his power on us, ADMINISTRATION had been just a hair’s breadth from overruling me. My blood chilled as I considered something.

If, in the future, it did overrule me, was I even capable of fighting it?

I didn’t know. I didn’t understand the Blessing well enough. Hells, I barely understood the thing at all. Our relationship was difficult to describe; we were clearly on the same team, but there was a certain separation between us. It wasn’t exactly disrespectful, per say, more…distanced.

I wanted to berate it in the song, to castigate it for acting without approval, but my attempts to reach it merely…slid right off. It wasn’t an intentional stonewalling, either, ADMINISTRATION was willing to converse.

I just couldn’t speak its language.

My primary Blessing didn’t communicate in the same way that the others did. It was more sophisticated than that. Its tongue, its speech, its song, made my other Blessings look like they were scrawling in crayon.

It was a Noble Shard, and I simply wasn’t advanced enough to converse with it.

I grit my teeth in frustration. Yet another thing I’d have to address, and yet another I didn’t have time for right now. Pausing a moment to examine my Grimoire, I realized that ADMINISTRATION had gathered powers similar in tune to those I already possessed, tacitly encouraging me to evolve them.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Unfortunately, I didn’t gain an instinctive understanding of Blessings until I made them active, at which point they’d become unremovable, and I didn’t want to do that just yet.

Frowning, I dismissed my Grimoire and beheld what must have been the building’s main lobby. Thankfully, there were far fewer Blessed inside, few enough that their songs no longer overwhelmed me. And ADMINISTRATION seemed to have calmed now that all my save slots were full.

There were multiple lines in the lobby, but fortunately all were quite short, and I soon found myself standing in front of a bespectacled blond receptionist. Who, startlingly, was entirely mundane. A bold choice, considering she’d be overseeing exclusively Blessed. I didn’t know if she worked for Uther or the Coterie, but somehow I doubted Aristocrats would take well to being managed by a mundy.

“Name?” She asked, not looking up from her ledger.

“Hero,” I responded. She wrote down my peculiar name without question or comment, and continued in an indifferent monologue.

“Obviously, we cannot verify Attunement, so we do not technically bar any from entry. That said, the Coterie strenuously recommends only those at the Grain stage or above to attempt the following examination and Agoge. The Coterie makes no guarantees, nor is it liable for, any conditions contestants suffer over the course of competition. Participate at your own risk.”

She inhaled, taking a deep breath before continuing.

“Prior to entry, contestants will be subject to a brief examination designed to roughly emulate the year’s theme. Those who pass will be granted the remainder of the day to prepare. Come the morrow, contestants should return to this location where they will be grouped into parties of six at random before being transported to, in this case, the Frontier.”

She looked directly at me for the first time, and her face softened, though only for a moment.

“Contestants should be aware that less than eleven percent of those participating manage to pass the examination. Of them, a further eight percent typically fail the Agoge itself. Finally, twenty two percent emerge victorious, and seventy percent die. There is no rush to compete. Take your time, and only engage the Agoge when ready. The Troupemaster rewards the prepared.”

“Are you prepared?” She asked, finally.

I wasn’t. I barely understood the mechanics of Blessings in general, let alone my primary one. Perhaps the smart choice would have been to go and spend a decade or two, or more, training. Perhaps, given time, I might divine on my own how to progress to the Marble stage. It would be slower, sure, but far safer. I could isolate myself entirely from the world, emerging only when nothing more was capable of threatening me.

But I didn’t have time. I was sure of it, I felt it, deep in my bones. Something unknowable was warning me. I couldn’t just go off and hide. I had to save the world. After all, my Grimoire itself said so.

So I lied.

“Yes,” I replied.

Wordlessly, the receptionist nodded, and made another note in her book. She handed me a thin, silver, metallic wristband, and gestured to the right.

“Follow the lights. Room 62. You have one hour to complete the exam. Time is tracked on your wristband,” she explained, and with a final, “may the Troupemaster guide you,” she waved me away, and that was the end of our conversation.

My bracelet glowed green, and I marched alongside the wall lights flashing the same color towards my destination.

~~~

Pylon sighed from inside the observatory.

Uther’s tech was second to only one, truly, the Runemaster alone eclipsing the American Aristocratic Cell, and the command center within which he currently stood demonstrated nothing less than their prowess. Countless sleek, sharp screens displayed one hundred different exam rooms from which one hundred different contestants tried their luck at the Coterie’s one hundred and thirty first examination.

Most would fail, but they’d be the lucky ones. After all, the preliminary examinations were safe. Contestants didn’t die now, they died during the Agoge itself. Trial by pain and suffering, strength through traumatic crucible, a tale older than the Coterie itself, innovated by their Troupemaster’s very own mentor. The single most effective way to prepare for the Warrior’s eventual return.

But that didn’t mean Pylon had to like it.

Though the young weren’t supposed to compete, they always did, and the exam never blocked them all. Some would pass, only to perish during what followed. Arrogant young nobles greedy for glory. Wretched recent triggers desperately groping for a better life. It didn’t matter.

Dead children were never a good thing.

It always soured his mood, overseeing the Agoge, and this time his disposition was further worsened on account of his host. Or, lack thereof. Pylon gazed wrothfully at the heavily cybernetically enhanced Blessed behind him. She was high up in Uther’s Cell, a daughter of the main family, elevated enough to not be too disrespectful, but still send a message.

The Marble stage Tinker cringed under his eyeless glare.

“My deepest apologies once more, Mighty Hand, for lord Bastion’s absence. I’m afraid the Spawn is ever belligerent, and some of the more advanced emplacements simply cannot be serviced by any other. We certainly mean no offense by it, the Coterie has always and will always have a staunch ally in Cell Uther…”

Pylon turned away, tuning out the Tinker’s flowery words.

It was true, what she said, that was the sad thing. Not about Cell Head Bastion’s absence, that was a load of horseshit, but about their alliance. Uther and the Coterie went way back, back almost to the Cell’s founding. It was thanks to the Coterie’s resources that Uther had survived the early days, Priest knew Tinkers were expensive. Their relationship with Uther was almost as good as their one with Regis.

Or at least, it had been.

Pylon sighed once more, inaudibly. Times were changing, as Sibyl prophesied. Uther had grown more distant and profit-oriented with each new Cell Head, forgetting their roots. But this was a bold step, beyond the pale. To snub the Coterie even privately, so directly. It meant nothing good. Having Uther host the Agoge was intended to placate them. To assuage their fears and remind them of their ties, all in one swift maneuver. It was a good plan. Unsurprisingly. After all, it was Sibyl’s.

But she’d been wrong.

A worrying prospect, occurring more and more often these days. It wasn’t her mind–the legendary Thinker was just as sharp as ever, Pylon was sure of that. No, it was the world. It was changing too quickly, shifting too fast, powerful players making moves across the globe for the first proper time in centuries.

And Uther was afraid.

The Cell’s fears confirmed those that had plagued Pylon, and even Sibyl, for the past decades. It meant that Syn and Nycta were no longer interested in being subtle. It meant that they were about to go on the attack.

It was no secret that the Coterie opposed them in just about every way, but that didn’t matter. The Coterie’s ties to Regis weren’t public, so that wasn’t the issue, either. No, Syn and Nycta would go after them simply because they were strong. They’d go after the Faith, and the Empire, too.

The Slaver Cells wanted no threats to their sovereignty, and Uther wanted no part of the war between titans.

Pylon wrenched his mind from the coming storm, and focused on the examinations. Nearly one thousand had already taken place, and more would do so before the day’s end. This year’s crop of participants was a promising one.

Each passing annum saw a more numerous and puissant group of contestants undergo the Agoge, but even so, this one was unprecedented. It was as if the world’s Blessed could feel the approaching conflict in their blood, and were eager to take part. The breadth, and strength, of powers was a sight to behold.

Though, two in particular stuck out in Pylon’s mind. The Light and the Shadow.

He knew well the young man that the Coterie had saved from cryo nearly two decades ago. After all, he’d been present himself for the boy’s rescue. High Inquisitor Glare had proven just as much a justiciar as his name implied, a shining beacon embodying all that was good, and just, and noble in this world.

He was strong of Blessing, true, but more importantly, he was strong of character. He was a mite naive, still, even after his service to the Frontlines, but such weakness would disappear given time. Glare would make them a strong ally, and Pylon was happy to have him.

Less so, the Nycta girl.

Pylon frowned. Soultaker had kept his half-breed daughter well under wraps, but nothing good came from that Immortal psychopath. Thaum may have been Forsaken, but she certainly fit well within the aesthetics of her father’s house. Pylon had watched her tear apart the test golem from afar with merely a gesture, countless shadowy servants emerging from within the folds of her cloak to strike on her behalf.

A Master.

An unsurprising primary Blessing, considering the girl hailed from a house of Masters. All the same, such a categorization would do the girl no favors finding friends. People hated Masters, and Pylon didn’t blame them. Being immune to their grasp, himself, didn’t diminish the terror they incited in him. He’d seen too many comrades fall to their clutches for that. Granted, Thaum seemed to be a nonhuman Master, the summoning rather than controlling kind, but few would believe that was where her power ended, and fewer still would care.

Masters and Strangers, the near universally–reviled.

And yet, they were almost crucial for successful delves. Summoning Masters could scout from afar, expendable servants a boon in nearly any situation. Strangers could do the same, and were additionally often able to locate and disarm traps. Without them, a party risked blundering headlong into waiting ambushes and cruel ruses laid by the surprisingly cunning Labyrinth.

Pylon sighed for a third time, sadly. Perhaps the girl was a pawn, an unwilling servant, or perhaps she was just as evil as her father. Ultimately, it didn’t matter; he couldn’t intervene directly on her behalf without starting a war, and he’d have to keep a close eye on her regardless.

He planned on grouping her with Glare’s party, interested to see how the two would interact, being such opposites. If Thaum really was wicked, then perhaps the High Inquisitor would be capable of seeing through her lies. On the other hand, if the young woman genuinely needed help, perhaps he’d be able to provide it.

Pylon rubbed his metal forehead as he pondered, gunmetal-grey gloves squeaking against the steel. Nodding once, his mind made up, he turned his attention back to the screens.

And to a white-haired, green-eyed contestant that had just reached the final room of one of them…