As Axel, Lyra, and Aria sat on the floor with their backs to the various bunk beds, the smell of fresh bread and stew filled the room with its aroma. Lyra and Aria had changed out of their dresses into more comfortable clothing and looked at Axel expectantly. Axel first took a drink of water and then looked at Lyra to start.
“So, I have researched what entities we will be fighting if you are trying for healing as your first power or if you want to follow Cade’s plan. I assume you will be going with the reflex boost for speed and precision,” Axel said. At Lyra’s nod, he continued, “Then we will have an uphill fight as we will have to fight mine and yours together. Plus, if you are unable to take the healing orb into you, we will have to fight the third before I can make my Novice core, or it could prevent the material from dropping for you due to my presence destabilizing the crimson orb. This is going to be rough, no way about it, as I decided to kill a Creeper for my power as that has the best power to fit my needs.”
“Creeper? Aria does not remember that being an option for the first Novice trial,” Aria asked in confusion.
“Creepers are a rarer weak crimson entity needed for humans to have template regeneration. I would have found it odd if you did know about it,” Axel explained.
“Aria figured that you would go for one of the endurance options or even regeneration in the body category. Why go for the special human pick? Is that not hard to manage?” Aria questioned Axel with curiosity in her silver eyes.
“I think I know. It’s about what happened to Quinn and his disability, right?” Seeing Axel’s sad nod, Lyra looked over to Aria and told her, “Axel’s father lost his arm in getting the material to save him from a life as a cripple or an early death due to his condition.”
“Aria knew about Axel’s father but did not hear about the price he paid so his son could thrive,” Aria put down her meal and moved over to hug Axel with one arm. “Aria will stand by your choice as it should help with a fear you have. Just know that Aria is with you even if you lost some fingers or even a hand! But Aria draws the line at anything more than keeping three-quarters of your body intact!”
Axel chuckled at Aria as her tone of voice gave away that she was trying to reduce the tension. “Well, according to the text, Creepers are a pain to kill as anything that does not destroy their cores will just regenerate. They are known for their resilience and ability to recover from almost any injury in moments. That’s why I chose it; the regeneration ability will be crucial for me and allow me to do more with my strength.”
“The endurance options right now either are slow-growing or have drawbacks I am not ready for,” Axel then listed the variant powers that he had looked at and their drawbacks, such as slowing down healing or loss of physical sense.
“Aria is executive vetoing the last one now. That would make life too sad for months and months until you would have to fix it in the Adept tier with a sense enhancement. No way is Aria going to not have Axel for that long or not have Axel enjoy our time together.” Aria cut in, causing Lyra to turn a bright shade of red.
“Well, dear, that is why I went with regeneration. It also has a side effect,” Axel then listed some known side effects, causing Aria to turn red for a moment and then glomp onto Axel’s arm.
“Aria will take that as a promise!” Aria whispered into Axel’s ear, her breathing coming in deep, heavy breaths.
“To get back on track, Lyra, I assume you have done your research on your opponents while you were stuck here waiting?” Lyra nodded to Axel. “So the main plan is for me to hold the Creeper and you deal with the Umbral Doll so that I can kill the Creeper.”
“Umbral Dolls move quickly, so you will need to trap it or hit it hard, but from my reading, they are not the hardiest of beings.” Axel continued, followed by cleaning his stew bowl with the end of his bread.
“I have a plan to deal with my Umbral Doll quickly. It’s you I am more worried about, Axel. Will you need my help with your Creeper? Those sound very deadly, but we may need to work on the fly with this as we don’t have any experience fighting these things.” Lyra added, sounding worried.
“Well, that sounds as good of a plan as we are going to make with what we have. Anything else you ladies have? Otherwise, that’s all I can think of.” Axel said while putting his bowl to the side, feeling that he was forgetting something, and his journal was blinking an alert that seemed to be nothing.
“Did not Axel want to ask Lyra a question about the duel?” Aria asked, and as she said it, the warning in Axel’s journal superimposed a quest alert reminder that he needed to talk about the duel. The text was so big it took most of his vision. This caused Axel to jump and crack his head on the bunk, hearing the sound of it being damaged.
“Goddess damn it, that’s a first. Why is my quest text covering my vision?” Axel asked while blinking and trying to reduce or get rid of the text.
“That’s what happens when people ignore a quest that the Goddess helps them set. It upsets her greatly when the request is ignored.” Aria explained in a chiding tone.
“So, Lyra, now that I am reminded, on the day that Cade died, do you remember anything off? Like when you were going to refute the challenge? My mind palace seems to be tampered with, and I seem to get distracted every time I try to talk about it.” Axel explained while his brow furrowed in concentration.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“No, why would… why didn’t I stop the duel?” Lyra started to reply, only to stop and go wide-eyed when she thought about the situation then rubbed her temple in pain. “But an elder would have… Wow, that makes my head hurt.”
“Aria, I think it will take time for me and Lyra to get through this, so you will have to keep us reminded.” Axel laid the responsibility to keep them reminded of the issue so that at some point Lyra and Axel could break this conditioning.
“Aria will do that. Is there anything that can be done about this?” Aria replied with a worried voice and held Axel tighter.
“I am not sure and don’t think with how this is, I will remember to ask. Lyra, I would work on your memory palace as that was how I was able to notice in the first place.” Axel informed Lyra of her worried look. “I know the drawbacks can suck, but I don’t know of anything we can do but change our power plans, and we may not remember at the time to do that.”
The group discussed this issue in circles for a while longer until Lyra needed to return to her inn with Aria. Axel also worked with Lyra to arrive early so that the other villagers would arrive later with her. As Aria took Lyra back, Axel decided to do his meditation practice to calm himself, as he had been slacking since coming to the city. When Aria returned, Axel took her to bed, and she helped him relax.
-----
Axel spent the next day at the Storm training center working out his nerves before the Trial that was scheduled for the following day. When he invited Aria for training, she informed Axel that she had extra secret training that she was doing, so sadly she could not ogle Axel while he worked his body. This left Axel to work with others there, and while he received a good workout, his axe training was going about as badly as all of his previous training attempts. In his frustration, Axel moved to work on his hand-to-hand skills again, with much better gains.
After the workout, Axel returned to the inn and decided to take a nap and rest as he didn’t feel like risking going to the library and didn’t want to pay more in platform fees. Since he was in his room, Axel worked on his meditation until he was woken up by the door opening and Aria entering the room in her scout gear. Aria gave Axel a surprised look and gave a cute ‘Eeep’ followed by throwing her cloak over Axel blocking his vision.
“You are saw nothing. Aria was not in her scout gear training, and you saw nothing!” Aria quickly said and changed her clothes. The rest of the evening, Aria brought out several games that she again tried to teach Axel, with the rules changing from the last time she did this. Even with that, it was an enjoyable afternoon to evening, allowing Axel to relax and forget about his novice trial in the morning.
---
Morning came all too early the next day, though Axel liked waking while being wrapped in Aria’s softness. Going through his now morning routine, Axel garbed himself in his weapons and armor before kissing Aria and heading out. Taking a platform to the Vanguard tower, Axel checked in with a female Vortan at the front desk and was led to a waiting room that trial participants used to prepare for their dives. It contained lockers and other storage so that they could drop off anything extra that was not needed.
Axel tried to loosen up and keep himself from getting tense when the door opened, revealing Lyra in leather armor similar to what Axel and Aria had, with matching boots and gloves. Likely bought from Jareth’s shop if Axel had to hazard a guess, but that was just his mind wandering in a tense time. Lyra, with her red hair tied back, sported a shield and a sword between a short sword and a long sword in length. At her hip were pouches and a sling attached to the belt. There were also several throwing knives strapped to her right leg and left forearm to give Lyra an arsenal so she could deal with anything this trial had to offer.
“You are looking deadly this morning, Ly,” Axel complimented as he gave her a once-over to make sure nothing was too loose or tight so as to not shift during a fight. Lyra then gave Axel the same, as was a common ritual for the hunters of their village. The pair then started to do the partner stretches they had done so many times before during their Storm training. When they were both limbered and had triple-checked their gear, there was nothing left but to wait.
Thankfully, the wait was not long. About twenty minutes after the last check and going over what they knew about their opponents, the door opened again to reveal Rex in his instructor's light combat armor with strategic plates protecting critical locations.
“Well, you both look ready and even wore matching armor, how cute,” Rex said in a dry tone at the pair and led them to the metal box called an elevator. As they entered, Rex pressed a button that had a ‘T1’ and, before the doors closed, wished them luck. The doors closed and a sense of downward motion happened, making both Axel and Lyra move to the walls and hold onto convenient handles as Axel assumed the metal box was moving under the tower.
The ride lasted about five minutes when the box stopped with a ‘Ding’ and the door opened to a room that was a good fifty by fifty with a ceiling also at, Axel guessed, fifty feet. As Axel and Lyra stepped out of the elevator, the doors closed behind them and the wall followed up, leaving a smooth wall where the elevator was. The room was lit by light gems and nothing else was in there, leaving Axel and Lyra looking around in confusion until a voice spoke from the walls.
“Novice Trial for Lyra Windchime and Axel Thunderstrider. The Entities will now be released, prepare for combat!” The voice was rather toneless and did not sound like a person. Axel, though, did not have much time to analyze that as two spots in the center of the room shifted, and up came their planned opponents. The first was the Creeper, a bipedal creature with an emaciated body covered in red skin standing at over ten feet with arms that stretched from shoulder to ankle. Axel could see what the book described as its core, which came in the shape of a black bead just over its right front pectoral. However, with Axel’s reading, it could move around in a fight.
Next to it, Axel saw the Umbral Doll floating while flapping its misshapen wings. It looked like a deformed human child to Axel, but again, according to his reading, the other races would see one of their race. Some type of natural defense causes others to hold back from harming it, but that would not stop it from helping other creatures kill you. Umbral Dolls were never found alone and needed to be fought in a challenge with another entity, or they never dropped an orb. Again, no one knew why, but after hundreds of attempts, that was the finding.
Both beings were held in a blue transparent dome that they were trying to get out of, to no avail, but as they attacked the dome, it seemed to be weakening. Axel looked to Lyra and moved to the lead position to take the assault first, so Axel braced for the fight to come. Lyra took her sling off and prepared to let loose a projectile the moment the dome came down. Based on the color of the domes, it would be another moment at most.