As I stepped through the sheet of darkness, bright light flooded my senses, blinding me for a moment. Once I recovered, I was stunned once more by the sheer size of the room. Clearly a gladiator pit of some kind, the stands shot into the sky, making me suspect magical trickery of some kind. The room was circular, but there were doors across from me, and to my left and right. Directly in front of me was a small pedestal, about hip height, with a glowing orb in the center and a sword plunged through the rock directly above it. The ceiling, a good 3 stories up, was light with a brazier large enough to hold a bonfire, dangling form the ceiling like a chandelier.
"While I'm not in the habit of grabbing glowy objects, I'm thinking I don't have a choice." I sassed the pedestal, immediately forgetting what happened the last time. I grabbed the rock, and felt the same awful sensation of words pouring into my head, like honey being dripped onto my brain, this time accompanied by a flow of Mana into my Mana sac. "Gahh, that sucks so much."
Power
Versatility
Balance
I waited for anything else. "That's it? Just, Power Versatility Balance? That's unhelpful." I muttered to myself, unknowing of my mistake.
Your choice has been made. Good luck, Traveler.
"Excuse me? What choic- ooooohhhhhhhh. Yeah, that checks out. Whatever." I complained, grabbing the blade out of the pedestal, revealing a markedly well maintained shortsword. As soon as I retrieved the sword, the door across the room slowly slid open with a loud grating sound. As I watched, A gargantuan stag beetle, easily double the size of the Nightmare Cat, sauntered out of the doorway. "Exfuckingcuse me? Who is feeding you? You have no right being that large." I whined, already circling the arena, trying to gauge the insect's speed. It's legs were spindly, seemingly susceptible to blunt force. Unfortunately, swords aren't typically known for that, so I was gonna go in swinging, in an attempt to end the fight early. "Call me King Arthur because eat shit!" I yelled valiantly, charging the distance between us. The Mega Stag, as I had so eloquently taken to calling it, was clearly unhappy with my noble war cry, and turned its horn towards my face.
As I closed in on the huge insect, I noticed that it seemed to be guarding something against the ground. I had very little time to think on that though, because I immediately slammed my sword through its front leg. Which accomplished almost nothing, because it had 5 more, and then turned around and threw my across the arena. I hit the wall with a grunt, feeling decidedly like shit. Once the shock of the hit had worn off, I looked to the bug, only to see a grey glow emanating from its underside. "There is no way I'm going to like whatever that is." I murmured, right before the Stag charged me like a semi on the freeway. I managed to dodge to the side, barely, but I felt the wind of the charge, and I definitely heard the loud crash of the beetle impacting the wall.
I scampered backwards, not at all prepared for that much acceleration. "That was magic and I want it. How come you have rocket magic and I have a funny magic baseball? The scales seem a little tipped." I complained to the Stag, right before it turned around and charged again. This time, when I want to dodge, I tripped on a rock hidden in the sand and fell on my face. The Mega Stag rushed over me with barely an inch of clearance, giving me an idea. I waited for the Stag to turn around once more, and hit the deck when it charged again. This time, though, when the beetle ran over me, I stuck my sword straight through its underbelly, eliciting an insectoid scream of rage and pain. I let go of the sword, in case so I wouldn't get dragged over the sand. Even after being impaled, the beast wasn't dead, just incapacitated, a testament to the sheer power beholden to it. I walked over to where it collapsed, formed another combat knife out of Mana, this time with just one point, and stuck it in the gap between its head and thorax. Once it died, I felt a now familiar inflating sensation, this time on my tailbone. At least the increases in pain seemed to have stopped.
With this new addition to my magic repertoire, I was forming a theory of how to get more magic. When I first met the Nightmare Cat, I noticed the shadows bending around it, letting it hide. While it never got a chance to use the ability in out fight, I received Dark Mana from it. Now, this Mega Stag seemed to have something to let it instantly accelerate, like a Motion Mana or something. I wasn't able to know what it did exactly until I tested it, but that seemed a pretty solid bet in the meantime. It seemed like, I got the mana of things I killed. I had no idea why that was happening, but I would take it.
"Alright, glad that's over with, but how do I get to the Versatility trial?" I asked, before realizing the likely answer. I braced my legs- and fell through the floor again.
"PLEASE stop dropping me through the floor!" I begged, though I received no response. Taking stock of this new room, I noticed another pedestal, this time with a slot in it and no crystal. I did the obvious thing, and slipped the sword into the vacancy. As I did, I braced myself, half expecting more words to flow into my mind. Instead, the wall in front of me lit up with 3 shapes, all with slots underneath them. There were strange characters that seemed to swim at the top, before slipping into English.
"I don't think I have the time to unpack that right now, but I really should remember that." I muttered to myself, before reading the words.
Control Your Mana. Demonstrate Your Imagination.
"So I just have to copy the shapes on the wall, and then, what? Where does imagination come in?" I wondered, already prepping to copy the shapes. I had 6 orbs, and I wanted to make them count, so I was going to try something. The first shape was a cube, so I tried to put in half as much mana as usual. The cube did show up, but when I went to grab it, the shape exploded into motes of blue light. I upped it to 3/4 of the usual amount, and slid it into the slot. With some more testing, I might have been able to up the spell efficiency for combat, but for now, I could only really use it here. Once I slotted it in I finally looked up.
"Wasn't this room bigger? I really feel like there was more space here." I questioned, looking at the walls carefully, only to see them slowly shrinking on me. Only panicking a little, I picked up the pace. The next shape was a simple 2D spiral, filling me with ideas of what I could do with flat constructs, but I couldn't focus on any of them. I hurriedly shaped it in my head, working as fast as possible while preserving structural integrity, and then a slammed an entire orb out of my hand, directly into the slot. The walls slowed just a bit, but not enough to provide comfort. The last shape was the most complex, a longsword. While it was a very utilitarian weapon, with very few embellishments, it required a lot of focus and a full 3 orbs of Mana to complete. The sword formed right as the walls got dangerously close, and I slammed it into place, hoping and praying my shapes would suffice. Hearing a click, I opened my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. The walls moved back to their original positions, and the wall in front of my split open to follow suit.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Thank you so much for not dropping me into another pit." I intoned gratefully, stepping through the newly opened passage. Based off of the previous trials, I was anticipating a mix of puzzles and battle for the Balance trial, but I was proved wrong when I reached the end of the hall. Stepping through another film of darkness, I was greeted with a large obstacle course. Starting with a balance beam, I would have to cross a large pit, jump across floating platforms, held up by some magic I hoped to be able to pull off one day, leading into a sheer wall with a door 15 feet up. Seeing the difficulty of the task ahead of me, I sighed. I was never all that dexterous, so it seemed I would be testing out my new Mana type sooner than I thought. I poured some Mana down to my palm, and tried to create an orb. It was much harder to control, and was constantly vibrating in place, enforcing the idea of motion. I turned back down the hall, and slammed the orb into my chest, thinking of getting to the door. I took a running start, and stopped. I had almost run into the door, and also crossed almost 20 feet on about 4 steps.
"YupI'mcallingthisMotionMana." I said, much faster than I intended. I doubted I would be using that much power often, but it could be helpful in getting out of the forest and into civilization. Next, I tried draining just a trickle, A flowing stream of liquid Mana, flowing out and attaching to my chest. Once the stream made contact, it turned transparent, almost not there. I could feel my mana slowly trickling down, but I got the feeling I could keep this speed up for about 20 minutes. I tried shadow boxing, my arms snapping forward at a noticeably faster rate. Doing a little jog around the room, I tried to gauge my speed. All of my movements were just a little bit faster, making me feel lighter. I might have even been able to compete with the Nightmare Cat in a dead sprint for a few seconds. I stepped up to the balance beam, feeling confident, and hit a pressure plate. It seemed designed to be unavoidable, presenting an actual challenge to this portion of the trial. Holes on the walls started shooting arrows across the balance beam, meaning I had to dodge, while trying to balance.
I decided to try something. Connecting my mana to my chest seemed to speed up my whole body, including my eyes, making the arrows seem a little slower than they should. I wanted to see if I could increase that effect to get a form of bullet time by focusing on my eyes. I cut off the flow to my chest, and moved the Mana up to my eyes. While inside my bloodstream, that accomplished nothing but giving my eyes a cool silver glow, when I connected the mana to my optic nerve, my perception went crazy. I was right about the bullet time, but there was a whole lot more Mana than there needed to be, and my eyes were not used to seeing that much. I instantly got a splitting headache and hit the ground, cutting off the flow of mana. My eyes hurt from moving so fast, my brain needed time to process that information as fast is it was getting it. Once the headache faded a little, I tried to connect the mana back to my eyes, but with a much tighter flow, only letting a drop of Mana through at once. Once I could handle that, I slowly increased the amount until I had a steady flow, and then I tried to move. I realized I was ridiculously slow, like someone imitating a turtle. I connected another Mana flow to my chest once more, but that was putting a bit of strain on my focus. Managing two streams of different sizes at once took a lot of effort. I took a little bit to adjust, and to match my eyes up to my perception, but all the practice had drained me of an orb, leaving me with a little more than a third of my capacity.
Realizing I needed to move fast, I got a running start, and sprinted as fast as I could across the balance beam. With the bullet time, I could see the arrows coming, and while I wasn't fast enough to dodge an actual archer, these turrets were significantly slower. I crossed the end of the balance beam, with only a few scratches from some near misses before I got the hang of it. Once I had caught my breath, I did a victory dance, but very quickly, still needing to get to the end before my Mana ran out. Hopping the platforms required very little issue, though they seemed designed to wobble, which checked out with the dungeon's malevolence. Violating OSHA guidelines wasn't the worst of its crimes. Once I reached the end, I took in the last obstacle, noting I had maybe 3 minutes of Mana left. I took a sprinters stance and tried to run directly up the wall. Predictably, I hit the ground soon after. Then I noticed a wall right across from the door, and realized what I would have to pull off. I got another running start, and jumped directly at the wall. Once I made contact, I immediately spun and tried to jump to the next wall. I clipped the other wall, but couldn't make it. After a few more tries, with less than a minute on the timer, I ran, jumped, spun, and connected a stream of Movement Mana to my feet. The extra velocity carried me across, let me turn, and clear the doorway just as my Mana ran out.
Once I recovered my footing and took a breath, I looked around the room. It was bright, the sconces on the walls actually containing lit torches this time. At the far end of the room was a pedestal, radiating a faint blue light. I walked over to it, hoping I was right about what it would tell me when I grabbed it. Reaching for the flat top of the pedestal, I felt the awful sensation of magical speech once again.
Congratulations Traveler, for proving your worth as a Spellsword. Take your rewards, and maintain balance.
I winced at the sensation, but I was glad to finally have tangible rewards for my efforts. The pedestal's top slip open beneath my hand, revealing the inside to be hollow. Reaching in, I found three items. The first was a shortsword, similar to the one from the first trial, in a scabbard. I attached it to my belt, then pulled it out and did a few practice swings. Liking the feel, I slid it back into the sheath, and went to look at the next item. The second thing I retrieved was a small glowing orb, about twice the size of a marble. As I watched, it dissolved into my hand, and sent glowing motes through my bloodstream. I suddenly felt my Mana sac buzz. Trying to figure out what happened, I cast an orb, land it felt somehow more there. I tested the durability by punching it, and it bounced across the room instead of breaking immediately. It still fizzled out when it hit the wall, but it was more than I was expecting. The final item was a small leatherbound book, simply titled "Spellsword Forms". I opened it, intending to leaf through it, but then I hit the floor.
Leaving my body behind, I tried to process all the information I had just received. Instead of being a book of sword forms, like I was expecting, this book poured all of the information directly into my brain, at the cost of making me fully unconscious. I woke up 5 minutes later, nursing a splitting headache. I gave myself a moment for the pain to fade, and then stood up and unsheathed my sword. Upon closer inspection, there was a little rivulet down the center of the blade that I now knew was for Mana. Sending a stream of Dark Mana up the blade, I struck the pedestal with a clean overhand slice, and watched in awe as the entire pedestal was encased in shadow, fading from view even in the lit room. It seemed the sword increased the effect of magic used through it, which was super useful.
"That was so worth falling down like three pits, and probably even the mental scarring from that Mega Stag! Thanks, dungeon!" I yelled, talking directly to the building. "Though, I would really like a way out." As if in answer, the ceiling opened up and a ladder fell through. Yelling my appreciation, I climbed the ladder for a good five minutes before appearing at the entrance of the temple. All in all, the exploration had taken a number of hours, and it was now too dark to continue exploring. Sighing, I laid down my everything I had brought with me, preparing to go to sleep. I splashed myself with my remaining Dark Mana, hoping to increase the capacity by tomorrow.