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[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/483986979902717973/1154310688232198225/WELCOME_TO_THE_SIEVE.png]
Advertisement poster for the Udrebam Sieve, Udrebam, Unix,
Note: There was a printing error in the creation of the poster,
Circa 1,195 I.E.
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The stone ground and groaned around Crow; grey walls wreathed in a deep enough shadow that he saw neither movement nor texture, so curved and rounded that he wondered if the great rumbling was born from it rolling down a slope.
A fathom wide and high, the cell somehow seemed far smaller than when he first entered it. Its walls hadn’t been nearly so cramped from the outside.
Darkness had shrunk them. Drawn them in around Crow like a noose tightening about his neck. The sensation sent needles dancing across his skin, and it was all he could do to steady his breathing.
Keep calm, Crow. He told himself. If you lose your head over some noise and shadows, you have no chance once the tasks actually begin.
His mind was frozen calm by thoughts of what was to come, and Crow felt the irrational fear of his chamber seep away- displaced by a dread that was no less intense, yet ever more logical.
The Sieve was a challenge taken on by countless young mystics every year, yet mastered by only an exceptional few. It was his crushing duty to count himself among them.
Measured against that, the obfuscated dome and its strangling walls seemed brighter and wider both.
He brought a hand to the device strapped across his wrist, studying it. The effort was futile in the gloom, but it was mere habit. He could picture the sight from memory.
A leather strap two fingers wide wrapped around his wrist; binding a small slab of stone. Grey as slate and pristine as cut glass.
The staff had handed it to him with orders to keep a tight hold, and he’d obeyed wordlessly. It was only when his sphere had sealed up that he’d thought to ask what it did in more detail.
Minutes passed, then with the agonised screech of stone against stone Crow felt the chamber grind to a halt around him.
He was shaky for a moment, righting himself as one inflected wall fell outwards like a drawbridge. Light seared his eyes, yet he walked into it without hesitation.
Muttering and the slapping of boot leather were all that coloured the world as he adjusted to the glare. Leisurely, in spite of his own frantic thoughts. Soon his bleary vision sharpened, focus bleeding in and edges becoming keenly defined in his sight.
What his cleared eyes revealed was far from Crow’s expectations.
A room far greater than the miniscule slot of carved granite he’d arrived in sprawled outwards, its ceiling towering high enough to loom over an oak tree, its walls so distant from each other that a man’s breath might grow short running between them.
Rock smooth enough to glint like polished steel made the place’s bulk, and great pillars reached down from above to caress the floor. He briefly eyed a number of openings lining the perimeter, but quickly found his gaze captured elsewhere.
Scores of other people wove in and out of the gaps. And it took Crow only a glance to know that each one of them, like him, was a wielder of magic.
Most seemed surer than he, but all seemed confused. There were clothes he didn’t recognise, in styles he’d never encountered back at Selsis. He doubted some were even found anywhere in its Barony of Rindarth.
The Sieves draw in mystics from all over Unix. I should’ve been ready for this.
Chastising himself did nothing for Crow’s nerves. It was one thing to know he’d be joining a pool taken from such a wide area, quite another to see its variety as a physical thing.
Even as he studied the mystics, low, murmuring voices picked up across the room. A dozen conversations starting all around him, loud enough to hear yet too numerous to understand. Turning from one to another, Crow became suddenly aware of how alone he was.
A glance showed the slate about his wrist held no changes, or at least none that Crow could imagine would give any tell of his objective. He found himself staring at it almost in defiance. As though doing so might force it to reveal more.
“Tell me, are you incredibly good at hiding your thoughts, or just so lacking in them that they barely register in your expression to begin with?”
He turned, eyes resting on a tall boy standing three yards to the side of him.
His hair was black, though with a crimson streak so vibrant it seemed born from a bloodied gash. Sharp cheekbones framed a pair of dark blue eyes, peering at Crow over a hooked, beak-like nose sitting above a mischievous, thin-lipped smile. He was phenomenally proportioned, almost mathematical, yet with features so slight he almost mistook them for a girl's.
“Excuse me?” Crow answered, all too aware of how foolish the dull response must have made him seem.
It sent cobalt eyes rolling and pale lips twisting.
“Pit, please tell me I didn’t get an idiot on my first try. Insulting them is like taking a saber to stone.”
Crow found his shock quickly replaced by anger.
“I’m not an idiot,” he snapped. “And talking proper like some bloody gentleman doesn’t give you the right to go around pointing it out to people even if they are.”
Annoyance and offense had blinded Crow to it at first, but he recognised the sharp, almost lazy drawl with which the boy spoke the moment he focused. It was the same accent he’d heard in speeches by Alliance officials the few times they trekked to Selsis. Jaean.
“And speaking like a caveman doesn’t make you nearly as endearing as you might think.”
Just as Crow considered punching the boy, his voice rang out again. Lower than before, softer too. Making clear that each word was between them alone.
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“Nor does it disguise what you’re saying. You’ve already been singled out as weak, wouldn’t want to let yourself strike the other contestants as stupid too.”
“Weak?” Crow asked, unable to stop the question.
It incurred another roll of the boy’s eyes, followed by him stepping forwards and gesturing subtly across the room. His motions were peculiar, as if constraining a great urge to do more.
“Weak.” He repeated, growing nearer still. “Take a look around you, at the other contestants. I mean really take a look at them. Tell me what they all have in common.”
Crow did as the boy instructed, though remained on guard.
For all his scrutiny he saw nothing out of the ordinary- save, perhaps, the clothes and features.
“Have you not seen it yet?” Snapped the boy, having waited barely a quarter-minute for Crow to look.
Irritated, he shot back.
“No. Why don’t you enlighten me?”
“They’re all older than us.” He answered, injecting every ounce of his contempt into the reply.
Crow barely noticed, for upon hearing the boy’s words he found himself staring at the other contestants with renewed interest. It took him only moments to recognise the truth.
The boy, rude and abrasive though he might have been, was right. Practically every contestant in sight was clearly older than Crow’s fifteen years. Their faces less ovular, their statures more adult.
“I don’t understand.” He whispered aloud, and he truly didn’t. Only two people from Crow’s town had left for the Sieve, himself and his sister. He couldn’t imagine her waiting years more after finally becoming old enough to enter.
The black haired boy’s lean cheeks grew rippled as his smile widened, like dunes atop a beach.
“Believe it or not, blondie, most young mystics are happier waiting a few years for their powers to strengthen before trying to compete. Coming here at your age shows either great confidence or great stupidity. After our little talk, I think I’ve realised which it was.”
“Crow.” He snapped, affronted by the boy's sheer presumption. “I’m Crow. You should at least use someone’s name if you mean to egg them on into hitting you”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Crow.” Answered the boy, back stiffening like a rod of quenched steel before contorting downwards into a mocking bow. “My name is Unity.”
That brought a frown to Crow’s face, his mind turning the name over in perusal.
Unity. He pondered. Where have I heard mention of that before?
His strained contemplation came to a halt as another contestant neared, and Crow found himself weary at her approach.
“Hello.” Said the girl. “I don’t suppose you’re looking for someone to join with in a team?”
She was shorter than him by a hand, with a peculiar tint to her pale skin and hair so red and wavy as to look like billowing flames. A stern glare seemed to seep from behind brown eyes, so steady and unbroken that Crow suspected it a permanent fixture of her thin, rounded features.
By the time he noticed the alien shape of her accent, Crow’s silence had grown uncomfortably long.
“No.” He answered quickly, almost without thinking. The girl’s words sank in only a moment later, the same instant Crow noticed they were of an age.
“Wait.” He added, hesitated, then continued. “I’m not sure.”
An eyebrow crept upwards on the girl’s face, forming a reprimanding arch as she peered at him.
Before Crow could worsen things with another word, he heard Unity’s shrill voice from behind.
“We are. I take it you’ve also realised how unappealing a comrade you are for everyone else?”
Crow turned to the boy, felt his skin crawl at how he grinned with every word.
“I have.” She answered stiffly.
Crow took slow, awkward moments to piece together what the pair were saying.
Each one of his fellow contestants had surely noticed, as he had, that they had stepped into a room filled with mystics. Yet Crow alone had been too slow to recall the vital information spurring them on.
Few Sieves of the last decade had been won by individuals. If a person were to succeed, their chances were increased a dozenfold by the presence of allies at their back and eyes on their blindspot.
And none would make a less reliable comrade than the youngest mystic in the room.
“Oh good, I think he just got it.” Remarked Unity, a sneer touching the edges of his perpetual smirk. “A few seconds sooner than I’d have-”
“Shut it.” Crow growled, then turned back to the girl. “Yes, I’d like to form a team with you. If you’re willing.”
Her response was a questioning glance at Unity, and Crow found himself shrugging slightly.
“Oh very well,” the boy cut in, “I’ll join as well. Since I’m feeling generous, and the two of you seem so very helpless.”
Turning to glance once more at the other contestants, Crow found himself suddenly fixated on catching any eyes that may have been on them. He found none, their potential enemies proving impressively subtle. He chewed a lip before speaking.
“Alright. So we’re a team then?”
“We are.” Confirmed the girl, while Unity merely smiled his unsettling smile.
Footfalls drew Crow’s eye back over a shoulder, and he saw that the already thin crowd of adolescents had begun to diffuse further.
In twos, threes and fours they made way for the exits; having their pick of pathways, yet shiftily eying those in other teams even as they went. It was almost like watching animals form packs, paranoia building walls between them as unbreakable as they were invisible.
“Are you coming?”
Crow spun at Unity’s voice. Shocked to find the boy already halfway to the exit nearest them, moreso to find the red-haired girl walking alongside him. He drew himself parallel to the pair with half a dozen hastened steps.
Ahead was a corridor half as high as the room from which it led, walls and floor made from the same glinting stone and carrying every echoing footstep long ahead. Lit by flickering braziers and chilled by the frost that seemed drawn to buried stone.
Something about it unnerved Crow. So much so that he barely noticed the red-haired girl’s stare.
“What is it?” He asked, then felt heat creep into his cheeks as he realised how harsh his voice had been.
“It’s nothing.” She answered, seeming not to care at all. Before Crow could press further she continued. “I heard you tell the asshole your name, mine’s Ethi. It’s nice to meet you, Crow.”
A smile took her face, warm as Unity’s was cold. Gentle as his was mocking. Crow found himself unable to help returning it as he saw all trace of the girl’s sternness melt away.
“Goddess’ tear, that was such a heart-warming introduction. It almost makes me forget that you just confessed to listening in on our conversation before you approached.” Unity jeered.
Ethi’s answer came before Crow had even opened his mouth.
“And that was such a snidely put accusation that it almost makes me forget that you spent a full minute testing the first person you considered forming a team with.”
Her glare struck the boy’s smile, ending in a stalemate as Ethi turned away. They continued their walk in silence.
Ever deeper into the corridor.
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[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/483986979902717973/1154319675950387211/THE_SIEVE.png]
Advertisement poster for the Udrebam Sieve, Udrebam, Unix, Circa 1,195 I.E.