Two hours of chores felt like an eternity. His muscles still ached, and he was finding it hard to stay upright, let alone focus on the tasks at hand. The unnamed still forced himself to clean and polish, working through the following day’s jobs until everyone in the guild was asleep, apart from those guarding the hall throughout the night.
By the time he dragged himself to his bunk to finally sleep for the night, he was so tired he couldn’t even manage to slip beneath the blanket. Fully clothed, bone tired and already starting to dream, he hit the bed and fell instantly into a deep sleep.
That sleep was disturbed by tumultuous dreams of repeated scenes from the day being played over and over again, distorted so as to produce as much anxiety as possible. The unnamed was battered and bruised by Tusk, Vella, and a host of other initiates while Leo sat on a golden throne nearby, eating chicken while scantily clad men and women doted on him like the servants of an Egyptian Pharoah.
The unnamed was mired in the floor of the sparring room as faceless goons punched and kicked him, his body sinking deeper and deeper into the pads as he tried to defend himself against the onslaught. Scenario after scenario played out, each with the unnamed helpless to adequately defend himself, until the dreams reached a crescendo and the unnamed found himself fighting, not initiates, but the pair of Blade Dancers he had met in the Blood Pits.
The twin figures were oversized, their faces covered by grotesque demon masks, their arms elongated and each ending in long swords like talons, rather than holding the weapons in their hands. They struck the unnamed again and again while he squatted down, staring at his hand with that strange mystical symbol etched in blood on his palms.
A storm of sword blows was deflected around the unnamed, pushed aside by the shimmering red ward that surrounded his body. In the logic of the dream, he felt an urgent panic, a sense that he knew the power of the protective shield would soon run out and that he didn’t know how to cast the spell again.
That moment of angst was stretched out as sword thrusts and swipes continued to batter the shield and the unnamed fretted and stressed over a problem that had no answer.
He didn’t know sorcery.
The first and only time he’d been able to cast magic it had been out of urgency and panic, grasping to a lifeline which had been offered to him by…by who?
Within the dream, he turned from the attacking Blade Dancers to look out at the surrounding crowd. Thousands of faceless shadows cheered and screamed in delight and bloodlust while he searched the crowd for the one who had gifted him his salvation.
He saw the figure sitting in the stands, a glowing crimson character surrounded by indistinct, shadowy forms. The light surrounding the figure was too bright for him to make them out clearly. What he could see was the curious ward symbol, shimmering with gold and crimson light in front of the figure as though they were holding up a mirror with the rune marked out on its surface.
Despite the distance between them and the roaring of the crowd in the arena, the unnamed heard a voice cut through the din and spoke directly to him. It was a female voice he didn’t recognize, its tones warped by the dream and made strange in his ears.
“Pass the test,” the voice said. “Complete the Rat Run, triumph, and you will learn the truth of the magic you hold within you.”
The moment he heard those words, the unnamed’s ward failed, twin swords penetrating the magical barrier and driving through the flesh of his back as…
***
He woke with a start, the collar vibrating around his neck as the unnamed stirred from sleep. He was covered in a cold sweat, his hands shaking as he came to full wakefulness. The pain that had racked his body the previous day was now gone, replaced by a dull stiffness that he slowly dispelled as he slid out from the bunk and made his way to the shower block.
In addition to keeping score with his various activities, the training collar also included an inbuilt clock and alarm system, a personal journal ability, and the capacity to record video footage and even analyze real time activities and provide suggestions for improvement when it came to martial technique and the like.
It was just passed 4am when the unnamed stepped into the practice area and stood in front of the door which led to the Rat Run. The other initiates would soon start to stir from their slumber, making their way to the shower block or eating breakfast before commencing morning chores. He had three hours before they would begin arriving in the testing area and the day’s combat training would begin.
Three hours.
That was a little less than the amount of sleep he had had the night before. But the unnamed didn't feel tired. He felt sore, weary from the previous day's activities, but not tired. Instead, he was practically shaking with anticipation, his body flooded with adrenaline as he placed a hand on the intricately crafted door to the Rat Run and pushed it open.
He expected resistance from the heavy door but instead it opened easily, almost as though it were welcoming him willingly to enter the maze beyond. As he passed through the threshold and walked into the Rat Run a HUD appeared, overlayed across his vision. It contained a green health bar at the bottom central space, an empty backpack symbol which he supposed represented his inventory, and a small section to the bottom left which listed his primary stats and total score, all currently showing zero.
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He took a deep breath and continued walking on, wondering why he hadn't thought to bring a weapon with him. The training room on the right side of the entrance to the Rat Run held dozens of training weapons. Wooden swords, clubs, staves, and even shields and daggers were on display in the room, and it would have only taken a few moments to duck in and pick up something that might help him defend himself.
“Next time,” he mused, making a mental note to return to the sparring room before entering the Rat Run again.
To his surprise, a small note symbol appeared on the top right of his HUD, pulsing with amber light until he mentally clicked on it. The note opened up to reveal a reminder message which read:
Get weapons from the sparring room before entering the Rat Run.
A small tick beneath the words sat next to and alarm clock, symbolizing that a reminder would be set if the unnamed wanted to do so. He mentally selected the tick, and the note disappeared, folding itself away and transforming into a small alarm clock symbol nestled in the far bottom right corner of his visual display.
He looked around, finding himself standing in a stone corridor which was dimly lit by means of a series of glowing stones nestled in niches along the walls on both sides. Weak amber light spilled into the corridor as he walked along, eyes wide and taking in as much detail as he could manage. The whole point of this was to learn about the inner workings of the maze, the kinds of enemies they would face, and obstacles they needed to get past. That little trick with the reminder message would come in handy and, if he could make sufficient notes about his time testing the Rat Run, it would help him prepare the team for the final test they would all undertake.
After twenty feet or so the tunnel opened up into a larger chamber which was around thirty feet across, and which stretched into the distance ahead and out of sight. Stone walls rose on either side and the floor and walls were fashioned from the same dull gray stone blocks.
He moved slowly up ahead, crouching down and searching the floor for any signs of a pressure plate or wire that might trigger a trap. He'd seen enough Indiana Jones movies to know how this worked. Hidden catches, stone tiles that looked slightly out of place, faces carved into the walls with mouths that doubled as blow dart receptacles. He was expecting something sooner rather than later. This was supposed to be a test after all so it made sense that whoever made this maze would want to get the initiates off guard as early as possible.
Of course, the Rat Run was random, wasn’t it? So, there wouldn’t be a natural progression from easy to hard rooms and there was also no guarantee what kind of enemy or challenge would be faced first.
While he was considering that fact, enemies drifted down from the ceiling; silent and dripping with venom and malice. Unlike the typical HUD you might get in a computer game, the display offered by the collar provided no warning of the descending spiders and it was only quick reflexes and luck that allowed the unnamed to survive more than a few seconds against the arachnid host.
He felt something drip onto his neck and slapped instinctively at the skin, only to pull away his hand and reveal a viscous substance that made his fingers tingle. He turned, looked up just as the closest spider released itself from the silk thread it had used to lower itself from the ceiling and dropped towards his face, fangs bared and dripping with venom.
The spider itself was the size of a large hand, or a small dog, with dark, fury legs and a cluster of green eyes on its heads. It boasted elongated fangs that seemed comically out of proportion with the rest of its body and which appeared to be dripping with venom.
The unnamed swatted the spider with one hand, moving to deflect the arachnid’s trajectory in the same way he had practiced deflecting punches the previous day in the sparring room. It was a surprisingly effective blow, made all the more startling by the fact that he actually remembered how to do it. The spider flew off to the left as more of its kind descended, falling towards the unnamed while he kicked and punched and swatted left and right, stamping his feet as the natural revulsion he felt at being face to face with a dozen angry spiders kicked into gear.
He stumbled backwards, the heel of his boots crushing one of the spiders and consequently slipping on the resulting goo and sending him tumbling to the floor just as two of the spiders were about to drive their fangs into his neck. He hit the floor so hard that it jolted the spiders off his body and sent them tumbling away.
He rolled, squashing another of the arachnids and feeling its venom laden fangs cut through his tunic and into the flesh of his chest as he continued rolling. He managed to get to his feet, still batting at the enemy with the back of his hands and stomping around in the vain hope that the noise might scare off the spiders or at least give them pause.
Attempting to put some distance between himself and the arachnid army, he stumbled forward, walking further into the maze as the floor sloped downwards slightly. The spiders continued to attack as he backed away. He saw now that some of them were larger than others, Chiwawa-sized with long, multi-jointed legs that made a pitter patter noise as they tapped against the stone floor.
Some were still descending from the ceiling, others coming at him from the walls. He couldn't see holes or cracks in the interior surfaces of the chamber. It was as though the spiders were just materializing out of thin air, gliding down on strands of silk or crawling across the walls and floor, fangs bared as they attacked.
The declining floor led to a circular chamber with a large fountain at its heart, a grotesque arachnid immortalized in a stone statue that sat atop the structure. The mote that surrounded the base of the fountain was filled with an off-white substance that looked like paint or sour milk, and which smelled like bleach.
The statue itself was in the shape of an oversized spider which looked similar to the smaller creatures currently attempting to kill him. It loomed above the center of the chamber, too many eyes regarding him with stony malice, fangs bared and dripping acrid milk into the circular basin that surrounded the fountain.
For a brief moment, the unnamed feared that it wasn't a statue at all but the progenitor of the arachnid host, the brood mother suddenly awoken in response to this intruder within her spidery realm. The realization that it was just a statue was tempered somewhat by the sensation of burning in his ankles and neck, the sapping of strength from his body as he fell to his knees.
The unnamed tried to fight the spiders, but there were simply too many of them and the venom in his system was already doing its work, burning its way through his system and dragging him towards unconsciousness and death. In the final moments as he fell to the floor and felt the unnerving sensation of dozens of spider legs climbing over his body, the unnamed tried to reason out the lesson he had learned here.
Spiders.
Lots and lots of spiders.
He tried to latch on to that thought, but it was too late. His first foray into the Rat Run had lasted all of sixty seconds. If he could summon the strength he might have laughed at that. As it was, he simply died.