Azura was really starting to get excited. The 5th trial had ended, with a pretty even fight, and now they were once again sent to their rooms to wait and see if they get a letter informing them that they have the option of taking the next trial. Between Katy relentlessly complaining about owing Roran 5 copper and Cynthia, and Luna’s near full recovery they were all in high spirits when they split off to their respective rooms.
He was fairly confident in most of their odds of continuing, but he was a little worried for Luna. She had been pretty reckless, but he hoped her skill and determination would make up for that.
He was thankful for the items he had taken from everyone to enchant, because without that to do he would be going absolutely stir crazy waiting for his letter. Although on the bright side, now that his unique magic was out of the bag he could send his copies to the library and forge without worry.
He idly wondered what the 6th trial would entail. He had some theories for the last one, but the sixth could be just about anything at this point. After a few hours of enchanting his friend's gear he noticed the letter on his desk. He must have been pretty focused if he missed the little flash of light that came with its appearance last time. He quickly opened the letter and scanned its contents.
“Dear taker of the trials
Congratulations on passing the fifth trial, you have proven yourself a skilled fighter on your own through the trials so far, but as important as individual skills are they aren’t everything. Even the most powerful mages in the world have tasks they can’t complete on their own. For your next trial, you shall be taking on a subjugation mission. Just as if you were professionals you shall gather a team of 7 hopefuls with which you will face a subjugation mission of your own choosing. You will not be allowed to take on anything higher than a rank 3 threat, but there will be no life line, no teachers will be present to assist you. Do not take this trial lightly. Historically this trial has the highest death percentage of them all. Choose your teams wisely, people you can work well with are important, but if you don’t have the necessary skills among your team it will mean nothing. Once again you have 2 days to prepare after this one, use your time wisely.
Sincerely the headmistress of G.F.A.”
His father would probably have something to say about the even powerful mages needing help part, but he was more concerned with the required number. They had a wide variety of skills in their group which was lucky, but they were only 6. The only person he knew outside of the group was Gareth, and he had a feeling Gareth wouldn’t have a short supply of team up offers.
He sighed. They had all agreed to not meet up today and just use it as time to rest. Although Katy, Lily, and Roran were reluctant since their own ‘fights’ had been so lackluster. He thought over the fights he had witnessed. None of the people in them particularly stood out, but he had missed a vast majority of the fights. Well no point worrying about it now, he would just have to discuss it with the others tomorrow.
He sat down to try and finish enchanting what he could before going to bed. He was a little surprised when the memories of his copies reached him. That was his que to go to bed, but he hadn’t realized that much time had passed already.
***
“I realize we don’t really know anyone else, but is Gareth really the best choice? I think Lily and Roran are plenty as far as heavy hitters go.” Well Katy wasn’t wrong, but Azura didn’t think they really had any slot they absolutely had to fill.
“We have a pretty well rounded group though, so there isn’t really anything we are sorely lacking. We have Cynthia as a battleground healer, Luna is great at scouting from very far away, You’re our resident stealth expert, and I’m pretty solid at field control and support. So basically we just need to fill a slot, there’s no specific skills we really need.” They had been arguing about who to add to the team for several minutes already, and he was beginning to lose his patience.
“I don’t know, I’m kind of with Katy. I think it would be a good idea to get someone with more… traditional field control.” Luna wasn’t exactly wrong, but they didn’t really know anybody that fit those parameters.
“What about that nature lady?!” Roran unhelpfully threw in his 2 cents.
“Nature lady?” Katy voiced the question going through all of their minds.
“Yeah, you know, the girl that fought the guy with the flaming sword. It was a few matches before Cynthia’s match.”
That jogged his memory. He went over the fight again in his head. He mulled his options for a bit as everyone either did the same or tried to remember who he was talking about. “I don’t know, nature magic is pretty restrictive. We don’t know what our mission is going to be, so getting someone so overly specialized might be a bad idea. The field control itself isn’t a bad idea though, did any other field specialists stand out to anyone?”
“There was that guy with the really gaudy staff. He seemed to mostly focus on earth spells, but he really dominated the field. His opponent wasn’t even able to get close.” Katy supplied after a second of thought. That fight must have happened while he was watching over Cynthia and Luna.
“Oh yeah, that guy was pretty strong! His earth magic might even be stronger than mine!” That surprised him a little. Katy had told him about Roran’s ‘fight’, and he had seen some of Roran’s skills first hand. If Roran thought that highly of him he must be pretty good.
“Besides, I’m pretty sure Gareth wouldn’t agree to team up with us anyway. At least not until he gets a rematch with you.” He winced, unfortunately Luna had a point. Gareth was definitely a prideful kind of guy, and his recent loss was probably particularly jarring.
“Yeah, you almost definitely have a point there.” He sighed. It was really too bad, Gareth was incredibly strong and definitely would have been a good addition to the team. Plus they needed another guy on the team, him and Roran were being constantly outvoted as the girls ganged up on them. He wisely chose to keep that particular thought to himself lest they decide to push for another female team mate. 4 against 2 was doable, but 5 against 2 would just be too much.
“Oh there is no almost. He tried to get me to join his team, but said he refused to be on the same team as you.”
He twitched at Lily’s cheerful statement. “If he already said no, why did you let us argue about it for 10 minutes?” He made no attempt to hide his irritation as she giggled quietly at his annoyance.
“Because it was amusing to me.”
He took a deep breath. They really needed another guy on the team. He pushed his hand through his disheveled hair. Without his father’s constant judgment he hadn’t bothered to keep it neat. “Glad us wasting our time was so funny to you.”
“As thanks for amusing me you can continue to bask in my presence.” She straightened up in what he supposed wasn’t a terrible pompous noble impression.
He rolled his eyes. “Thank you oh great and noble Lily. Truly we would be lost without you.” He went into his own much better impression. He then turned to the others. “So what do you guys think? Keep her entertained or trade for someone quieter.” Everyone laughed except for Lily who sputtered for a second before pouting.
“I’ll remember that whenever we get to spar.” Her mock indignation failing to get a rise out of made her roll her eyes, and start laughing along with the rest of them.
“So I think we got a little off track. What’s the vote on earth field control guy?” Luna brought them back on topic.
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“Do we even know his name?” He doubted it, but it was worth checking.
“You mean it’s not earth field control guy? Dang I thought we had it.” He chuckled, apparently Lily was all in on trying to derail the conversation.
Choosing to barrel past her distractions he didn’t respond to her comments.“Well on the bright side, I imagine it actually won’t be too hard for us to find a seventh.” Cynthia and Lily looked at him curiously, but everyone else seemed to be on the same page.
“I mean we’ll have plenty of volunteers, but we’ll still have to actually decide who to add.” Katy sounded tired, but he couldn’t blame her. This trial was off to a pretty tedious start, and it hasn’t even really started yet.
***
Katy knew objectively that this was going to happen, but knowing and seeing weren’t always the same thing. They had been bombarded with hopefuls looking to join their team the second they stepped out into the public courtyard. They had a lot of heavy hitters, and they had been seen together since pretty early on so everyone knew they would be one short. “You guys can deal with this mess. I’ll sneak off and see if gaudy staff is interested.”
She used a spell to make herself invisible, by bending the light around her after stepping behind Azura so no one noticed her vanish. The spell wasn’t perfect, but with this much noise and distraction no one was going to notice the slight shimmer or the sound of her quiet footsteps. She didn’t find the guy they were looking for in the crowd of people looking to join up with them.
She sighed. Of course nothing could ever be easy, what would be the fun in that. She got out of the crowd easy enough, and then took off down the hallways. She had no idea where he would be, but everyone had to be looking for teams now so she assumed he would be in an area plenty of hopefuls pass through. She figured the mess hall would be a good first bet.
After a few minutes of navigating the labyrinth that was this school’s interior she finally made it, only to be disappointed. He wasn’t there, though she did see Gareth forming his own team. It wasn’t surprising that he was having such an easy time. His and Azura’s fight was probably the highlight of the whole fifth trial.
Either way, she wasn’t really supposed to be playing spy right now. So she wracked her brain over where else someone might go to group up. Training rooms, that would have to be her next destination. So she left the mess hall as quietly as she had entered it, no one inside the wiser that she had been there at all.
After the training hall, public library, and the gardens all proved to be a bust she called it quits and went back to the courtyard to meet the others. She had to suppress a groan to see that the crowd, while not as bad as before, was still bigger than she would like. Although to be fair that wasn’t really saying much.
Luna was the only one to notice her appearance, and she turned to whisper into Azura’s ear. Azura’s eyes sharpened, but she could tell he was disappointed. Not in her, but just that they didn’t find their first pick.
She quietly slipped past the group of people trying out for their team and then dropped her invisibility spell when she was behind her friends. “So any good candidates here?” Azura seemed to be the one who had taken over interviews, so she asked Luna who seemed to be the only one that was still able to pay attention to the tedious process.
“A few, but I think Azura was really hoping you would find the field control guy. Everyone left is pretty solid, so he’s mostly looking at compatibility at this point. Both combat wise and personality wise.” That was fair enough, she supposed. He really wasn’t wrong about them being a good group, they could afford to take on someone who wasn’t a great fit combat wise, but someone who caused dissent and messed up their teamwork would really screw them over.
“They must not be that good then, we don’t know anything about gaudy staff except that he’s strong and… well has a gaudy staff.” She wasn’t really too worried. As long as the new member wasn’t a prick they would be fine.
Luna giggled. “I think it’s because a lot of the girls trying to get in have been super unsubtle about flirting with him, and he would rather have another guy on the team to try and even our team out some.”
She laughed, there wasn’t much Azura hated more than strangers flirting with him. “Oh no, I’m sure he really appreciates all the extra attention, maybe we should have him offer a kiss to the winner of a small tourney to see what they can do.” Azura must have heard that because he gave her the stink eye briefly before he turned back to his conversation with a shorter guy.
“He should just tell them to shove off like I did.” Ah so Lily was the reason most of the male hopefuls left. Katy imagined her warning to the guys flirting with her was appropriately menacing.
“Yeah he thinks so too, but he’s too nice to actually do it. Unless he’s in a really bad mood.” One of her favorite memories when they were little was watching Azura somehow clear entire rooms without being rude to a single person.
“He can also still hear you.” Azura said snidely in between his little interviews. She stuck her tongue out at him, and he rolled his eyes before talking to the next person in line.
***
Azura groaned. 70 people didn’t sound like a lot, but he was exhausted. They were sitting in his room going over the candidates they had met so far. “I’m about ready to just pick that quiet guy, I have almost no idea what he can do, but he hardly said a word so I doubt he would mess up the team dynamic.”
Lily chuckled. “I don’t know, the girl that was really aggressively flirting with you was pretty strong. Her match in the trial was pretty one sided.” The others joined her in laughing at his misfortune.
“No way, hard pass. I would rather not have to deal with her … particular brand of flirting.” He didn’t know if she was doing it on purpose, but he had never been more uncomfortable than he had with her, eying him like a piece of meat.
“Ahhh that’s cute, when did you get to be so shy.” Katy mocked, with a huge grin. Her eyes twinkled with enthusiasm at getting to tease him.
“I don’t think shy is the right word. More like wary, I get the feeling I would have to put wards around where I sleep if she was on the team.” The others burst out laughing.
Lily took a second to calm her giggles. “You're probably right, but who knows she was pretty strong, she might get past them anyway.”
He glared at her. “Wow thanks, your input is greatly appreciated. Anyway, does anyone have someone else they might like to consider?” He was honestly fine with almost anyone else. She hadn’t been the only person to flirt with him, but she had definitely been the most aggressive. He almost wished he had followed Lily’s example and just threatened anyone who flirted with him.
“Can’t we just apply as the six of us? I don’t know the exact number of remaining hopefuls, but I doubt it’s divisible by 7. Surely they’ll accept a team with as many heavy hitters as this one being one person short.” Katy had a good point, they might be able to pull that, but it’s also possible that anyone not in a team of 7 gets an automatic fail for the trial.
“Best to save that as a last resort, besides the more the merrier right!” How Roran could be totally serious and yet still somehow still childishly hyper was beyond him.
“I agree with Roran, or at least the first part of his statement. I am a firm believer in there being a point where there are too many people in any given circumstance.” Roran stuck his tongue out at him. He just shook his head at the silly antics.
“Well either way, we are going to need to make a decision soon.” Unsurprisingly it was Luna to bring them back on track. “I know you were hesitant about Siara, but I think she would be a good addition to the team.”
He struggled to remember who that was. He had gotten a lot of names from people today. Being hesitant about someone didn’t really narrow down the list much. He was about to ask who that was when he finally remembered the familiar name. “Are you sure? Nature magic is really situational.” Siara was the nature mage that lost to the flaming sword guy… What was his name? Something starting with a b.
“I mean yeah, but even in the arena which was totally devoid of plant life she held her own ok. As long as we aren’t going to a desert or an arctic tundra she should be super useful.” If nothing else she would be good for procuring fruits and berries, which would be invaluable in an extended subjugation mission. Plus since not many people live in desert or arctic environments the odds of them shelling out for subjugation teams in those areas were slim to none.
“True, and it really wouldn’t be a bad idea to have another support fighter.” They hadn't found the guy they had originally intended to ask, so he wasn’t going to bet on getting him on their team tomorrow, especially not with him and Luna on the same team, but on the flip side he and Roran were going to be even more outnumbered now. He sighed in resignation he couldn’t think of any reason to pick someone else.
“What about the guy Luna fought? He’s not too strong on his own, but anyone who could burn through condensers like that probably has some crazy resources.” He was thankful to Lily, she just provided him an option even worse than the one he was dreading choosing. To the point where he was glad to pick the option he wasn’t particularly pleased with.
“I really don’t think that will be good for team dynamics, I did not get a good feeling when talking to him. He practically radiated with sliminess. The guy was all kinds of bad news.” Luna, being the only one paying attention by the time he had talked with the guy, shivered at the memory.
“Yeah if we each get a veto, then he is definitely mine.” He didn’t blame her, that dude was seriously creepy.
Well there was one easy way to end this conversation once and for all. “Let’s take a vote.”