Azura was starting to hate mountains. Obviously the steep incline and tempest level winds weren’t bad enough of course the rock had to be covered in more and more ice. Thankfully the being either couldn’t or didn’t care to disrupt the temperature enchantments in his clothes. So as miserable as the trek was, he wasn't yet frozen solid.
He wished the being had at least given him an expected timeframe. He got more and more jittery each second that went by in his currently excruciatingly slow climb. He would probably survive the fall, but with all the ice he would slide down quite a ways, and frankly he got the feeling if he fell he should let himself fall as far as he could safely to help him get distance.
Letting the morbid thoughts go he kept climbing, having to use his blade to stop the wind from dragging him back. The icy ground didn’t provide much friction so it was pretty exhausting to keep himself from slipping. His movements were jerky, but extremely quick. They had to be if he took a split second too long to get the blade into the ground a bit ahead of him he would be pushed back several feet.
“I must really be broken.” He grumbled. It really wasn’t natural that these awful conditions actually made him feel less tense than the beautiful scenery he had first arrived to. I guess when you live your life always expecting bad things to happen it’s always better the devil you know.
His muscles ached, but he wasn’t willing to risk another break so on he went. Magic the only thing allowing him to breathe properly at this height, and keeping his lungs from failing altogether at the exertion he was currently doing. He couldn’t put into words how grateful he was when he began to feel a familiar magic bearing down on him. He was close now, or given how powerful the being probably was not as close as he had initially thought, but he was at least making noticeable progress now.
The wind even began to die down as he got closer and closer to the top. He imagined that wasn’t a natural phenomenon. Apparently the being awaiting him was kind enough to block the weather even this far from his lair. His arm went painfully numb pretty quickly after he retracted the blade. He imagined his legs would do much the same when he had some time to sit and take a breather.
He wasn’t as surprised when another of his copies memories appeared in his head. This one didn’t die, but had found an interesting familiar in the forest. Part of him regretted not taking that path at the beauty of the ethereal dusk wolf. They were a rare species, but they were intangible and invisible in the dark unless they didn’t want to be. They were beautiful during the day though. Snow white fur with natural blue markings.
He would have loved to have one as his familiar, but if he left now he would be hunted and killed, so he simply sighed and continued on his way.
***
Cynthia was a little relieved. Azura had retracted his statement about her being the least likely to pass the second he had found out what the trial was, and he had been right. Siara had come out of the portal about 30 minutes after her with a small ball of moss. She hadn’t realized that was her familiar until it opened its little eyes. That’s so cute!!! What kind of monster is that?!”
Siara was startled for a second before recovering. Her eyes glanced at the serpent wrapped around Cynthia’s legs, it wrapped around itself a few times, making it up almost to her knees. “Oh she’s a moss giant.” She gave Siara a confused look. That cute little thing was a giant? “Don’t let its current size fool you, moss giants can rapidly shrink or expand, and they can also create almost any plant they’ve consumed before.” Her eyes widened, well Siara certainly found a good partner for her. “What about yours? That’s an adamantine serpent isn’t it?
She looked down at the shiny silver colored serpent keeping her legs warm or more accurately stealing her legs warmth. She didn’t mind though, once he had warmed up it felt nice. “I have no idea, he wanted something to protect and decided he liked how warm I was. I don’t know much about monsters to be honest.” She bent down to pet the monster some, it hissed appreciatively.
Siara gave her a raised eyebrow. “You chose a familiar without even knowing what you were picking?”
She flushed. “Well there aren’t many I would recognize, and he seemed nice so…”
Siara chuckled and smiled at her. “That’s sweet, besides it worked out for you, adamantine serpents are fiercely loyal, and they get their name because their scales are supposed to be completely unbreakable.” Her eyes widened, she ‘had’ gotten very lucky. She was a healer, so a partner that could shield her from most attacks would be completely invaluable.
She opened up her bond with her familiar. It was an interesting experience, it wasn’t quite the same as her telepathy, it was clear and stronger. Words couldn’t really pass through it, but the feelings and pictures were enough for them to communicate to each other. She expressed her hope that he would protect her well, and he had happily agreed.
“Is there anything else I should know about them? I definitely need to find out how to care for one.” She hadn’t thought about it until just now, but she would have to feed him and probably other responsibilities. She had never had to care for an animal before and she had no idea what to do.
Siara chuckled. “Don’t worry about it too much. That’s one of the major reasons to do a binding ceremony. If he needs or wants anything from you he’ll show you.” She sighed in relief, Siara was right. She wasn’t just going to be tossed in the deep end she had him to help her. “Have you named him yet?” Oh right, a name. That was definitely something she should do.
“Not yet, how about you?” She was a little ashamed that the first 5 names that popped into her head were all basic descriptors of her familiar.
“Yeah I named her Gaia, it seemed appropriate.” She sighed, so Siara was much better with names then she was that much was clear. Siara was absentmindedly petting Gaia while mulling something over. “Yours is a little harder. Not any super obvious ones that come to mind.” Unless you were her and thought of names like metal or snake.
“I could just give him a regular name I guess, but somehow John doesn’t really feel appropriate.”
Siara laughed. “I don’t know having a giant snake named John would be pretty fun in its own way, but if you’re going for a regular name that’s more unique maybe Cyrus? Or if you want to use a name from old legends like I did, maybe Loki or Ouroboros might be appropriate.” She mulled them over, but she didn’t really want to name him after something if all she was going off was that he was a snake.
“I think I’ll name him Argent.” It wasn’t great, she knew. In the end it was basically just his color but in another language, but it sounded ok. At least to her it did.
Siara just gave a confused look. “I’ve never heard that before, does it mean something in particular?”
She thought about lying for a split second, but one of the others was bound to know, and no need to double the embarrassment by lying about it. “It just means silver. I couldn’t think of anything else, and it at least sounds a little better.”
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Siara chuckled. “So you think silver doesn’t make a good name huh, you should tell the boss that.” Siara laughed harder as Cynthia flushed in embarrassment. She had forgotten that was his family name. He didn’t seem the type to care much about that, but insulting a family name was a very dangerous thing to do. Even if you yourself were a noble, or perhaps especially then.
“Please don’t mention that to anyone, I wasn’t thinking. Nothing good would come from people knowing I said that.” She did her best to send her worry through the link she formed as well as her words.
Siara stopped laughing, and her mirth was replaced with confusion. “Why? Who cares, I was just teasing a little, it's not a big deal.”
“Nobles take things like that very seriously, insulting the name is the same as insulting the house. My mother and his father don’t exactly get along either, so if word got out that I said something like that it would be blown way out of proportion regardless of me and Azura’s wishes.” She didn’t mind being a noble most of the time, but she knew that was mostly because her parents sheltered her from the worst of it. She knew enough to know that even an innocuous statement like that could result in spilled blood.
Siara just gave her a confused look. “I mean if you say so, it doesn't make much sense to me but not like you even technically said it anyway.”
She chuckled silently, she said that all the time when she was little. The argument never did her much good, but she didn’t do a lot of ‘talking’ with people she didn’t trust anyway, so she figured it was probably fine. She was starting to get a little tired, she had used a lot of magic during the binding ceremony. She put her hands into the sign for rest.
Siara seemed to catch it and shooed her off with a soft smile. “I’ll keep a look out for when the others come through.
***
Azura was just about done with this stupidly tall mountain. It wouldn’t have been too bad if he could use magic, or if he had been able to prepare better, or at least if he wasn’t freaking out about how long it was taking him. He was finally able to end his vertical climb when he hauled himself up and over a ledge to find a surprisingly wide flat area leading up to a cave going deep into the mountain. The cave was huge, at least 15 ft tall. That was comforting, the monster that was focusing on him was either limited to 15 ft tall or was a shapeshifter.
Unsurprisingly that thought didn’t bring him much in the way of comfort. He took a deep breath to gather his courage and then stepped into the pitch black cave. The second he stepped foot in the cave the magic presence became thick enough it was hard to breathe. The mana in here was far more dense than anything he had ever experienced
“So you’ve finally arrived human.” He cried out as immense pain sprang from nowhere in his head. “You try to resist me? Allow me into your mind so I may judge your worthiness. Your resistance is impressive for one so young, but you will break long before I tire.”
He grit his teeth against the searing pain, and stared defiantly into the darkness. “Worthy for what? You’re the one that told me to come up here.” The being could try, but he would die before he let someone past his defenses. No one needed to know the secrets he held.
There was silence for longer than he expected. The splitting headache didn’t ease, but the deep resounding voice in his thoughts remained suspiciously silent. Continuing to fight off the invading presence in his mind he took slow and unsteady steps forward. “What do you want from me?! I’ll answer some questions willingly, but I won’t let you rummage around in my head as you please!” He shouted into the darkness, his own voice grating on his ears and somehow making his splitting headache hurt even worse.
The billowing sound of laughter rang through his head. “How long can you hold out human? Your will is strong, but you don’t yet have the strength to back it up.” He grit his teeth and continued to stumble forward. The splitting in his head suddenly multiplied and the pain brought him to his knees. “It is a kindness that I am only using a fraction of my power. If you continue to resist, I will show you all of it.”
He didn’t know if he could handle more than this, but sealing some of his memories and rummaging around his head were 2 very different things. He couldn’t no he wouldn’t let anyone do that. His mind was the only thing no else had the right to taint. It was the only thing that was truly his, he refused to let this being in. Even if he died here he wouldn’t allow his spirit to be violated. “Just do it then, even unconscious I’ll resist.” He glared at the empty space.
“Very well then, perhaps when you wake you will know to be more careful what you wish for.” His head suddenly felt like it was about to burst. A pain worse than anything he had ever felt assailed him. He screamed as everything went black.
***
He didn’t know where he was, his thoughts couldn’t properly form. All he knew was pain. Something was trying to dig through his head, but he wouldn’t let it. Why wouldn’t he let it? He couldn’t think clearly enough to come up with a reason. Would letting it in even stop the pain? He didn’t know. It didn’t matter anyway. He didn’t know why, but he knew letting this thing into his head was bad.
He fought with everything he could spare to get the presence out of his head. It wasn’t enough. The more he fought the more his head hurt, and yet he couldn’t stop fighting. If he stopped now what was all this pain for? He still didn’t know, but everyone had always called him too stubborn for his own good. Why break the trend now?
He was surprised when the haze of his mind cleared a little, the influx of memories from his last copy lessening the pain for him, if only briefly. The memories helped him recall who he was and why he was fighting so hard. Although he hadn’t known that he could experience pain so bad his copies would disperse, good to know.
The pain lessened even more allowing his mind to function a little more clearly, but then he was surprised to see the pitch darkness he was surrounded by shift and shape itself into a vast blue sky. He saw the world below him, part of him recognized it as the choosing grounds, but the other part was panicking because he was falling and his magic wasn’t responding to him.
“Surrender your memories human, you can not begin to imagine the fathoms of the power you fight against.” What else was new? His father had always set him up to fail, and yet he hadn’t and he didn’t intend to start now. The ground was closing in, he couldn’t use his own magic and his enchantments weren’t working, but he remembered something important.
“It doesn’t matter, this is all in my head.” The world rippled at his words, but he didn’t stop falling he didn’t care to. He couldn’t afford to waste his energy, he wasn’t going to be able to outpower this creature anyway, even if he pulled out all the magic he had stored over his life he still wouldn’t be a candle compared to his volcano. Even so he resolved to fight.
“Even mental injuries can leave scars.” Well that was menacing, and hit closer to home than he cared to admit, it didn’t matter though. He had decided to fight, so until he couldn’t anymore he would fight. Right before he hit the ground the world changed again.
This time he felt more in control of himself, and for the first time he actually saw the being trying to force itself into his thoughts. He looked like an old man, with a long wispy white beard and a balding head. He didn’t look frail though he looked lean and strong, like he had fought hundreds of battles and even age hadn’t made him any less deadly. “What are you? I know you’re not human, but there are a few x rank threats that might be able to do something like this.
The old man sighed. “This is no longer my doing human. Apparently I have found myself stepping on bigger toes than I could have possibly expected.” Something bigger than an x rank, that was impossible! How could you even get stronger than that? Even his father would be at risk if he tried to fight an x rank on his own, and he was perhaps the strongest human in the world, or if not he was close to it.
He looked around, and was surprised at the familiarity of it. It looked a lot like where the guardian spirit of the forest had taken him for its test. Except this time they were on one of the floating islands, and they were much bigger than he had thought they were then. A grand white castle bigger than the entirety of Grand Forge Academy gleamed in the light of the… not sun? There was no visible source of light, yet it was bright enough. It was probably less than 500 feet from where he currently stood. “Where am I?
“Your body still lies in my home, as for where our minds lie I do not know, but it feels like somewhere I shouldn’t be. Never before have I felt like an invader, but the power here is impossibly strong.” Was it? He felt fine. The beings power no longer felt like a crushing weight, but it didn’t really feel like something else had set to replace it.
“It feels so peaceful here.” The being’s eyebrows rose, clearly surprised by his response. The gates to the castle glowed brilliantly for a moment, and then he saw everything and nothing. Too much passed through his head for him to hold, and sleep took him.