It was the morning of the third day when Dev made it up the mountain. He had woken before sunrise, shivering after temperatures dropped and he got covered in morning dew.

He had clambered down to the gound and quickly repacked his tent, shivering. It was definitely getting colder as he climbed the mountain, but not nearly as much as he’d expected. Using his essence sight, he saw that the cold blue that permeated most of the peaks was barely present on his, overwhelmed by the gold. He ate a full ration bar, having skipped eating after the show last night.

Dev groaned, stretching his back. That was even worse than the ground. And I got wet!

Dev quickly got back to the path and moved at a fast walk up. There was only about two miles left, and he arrived just as the sun peaked above the horizon. By this point, the air was starting to feel thin. Illuminated by the light, he could now see that they were flying above a jungle, rather than the ocean they had last night. He then looked forward, into a courtyard surrounded by slightly crumbing pillars, which seemed far older than they must be. The temple was made of white stone and was a couple hundred feet across.

He made to walk into the courtyard, and nearly had a heart attack when someone suddenly blocked his way.

“Who are you? What do you want with me?” It was the blonde girl he had seen two days before.

“What? I’m just here for the temple, same as you.

“Don’t lie! I know that you were watching me on the first day. Why did you follow me?”

“What? Why would I follow you? I needed to get to the temple and was taking the same path you took.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “Then why were you spying on me?”

“I was spying on everyone after making camp.Trying to keep track of what was happening on the road. Did that big red head guy make it here?” Dev asked, trying to peer past her.

She relaxed marginally. “Why did you need to reach the temple?”

“I have an Anima affinity, and the temple seemed like the best place to learn something relevant.”

“Let him in, Lucy.” Dev heard another voice say from inside as the guy from the first day appeared.

“I’m Jay. Sorry about her. She is a bit paranoid.”

“Dev,” he said, stepping into the courtyard as she stepped aside. As she did, he saw the mosaic that made up the courtyard, marbled red and white dragons twining around each other, forming a fifty foot wide seal on the top of the mountain, surrounded by a border of black and white. The center of the mosaic had a pearl clutched in each dragon’s claws.

“You’ll want to step around the edges,” Jay said, doing so.

“Why?”

“That’s the trial here, as best we can tell. You step on it, and the dragons start moving. Then, you get kicked off. We think that you’re supposed to get to the center, but we only got here last night.”

Dev stared in awe at the mosaic dragons. He had, of course, used a great many magic items before, but he had never seen something so intricate. Where the pillars looked aged by time, the dragons looked like he could look up to find their scultor in the courtyard.

“Is that the entire test up here?”

“We’re still exploring the inside. You want to help us take a look around?”

Dev assented, edging around the mosaic. There was actually a few feet of space, but something in the way the dragons looked at him made him feel paranoid.

They entered the building, and Dev was surprised to feel that it was nicely warm inside.

“So, we have a courtyard and entryway scouted,” Jay told him. “We’ve also found the kitchen and bedrooms. No food, but plenty of firewood.”

“Y’all remember to gather greens on your way up the mountain?”

“You know how to forage?” Lucy asked him, surprised.

“You don’t? It was one of the first things my group’s teacher taught us.”

“Mine was really bitter about not being allowed to run the islands yet.” Jay answered

“My teacher just grumbled and complained about having to teach us,” Lucy said.

“Huh. Warren mentioned that they were originally coming here to test the islands before politics got involved. I guess not everyone took it as well as he did.”

“Hey, could you teach us?”

“Yeah. But let's explore first. I don’t feel like making the trek back down to the tree line immediately after making it up here.”

“Sounds good, then. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow is fine” Dev agreed, before hesitating. “Wait, why are you okay waiting? Aren’t you afraid I’ll skip out on you and sneak away?”

“No,” Jay said, without hesitation. “I can sense that you’re being honest.”

“Concept?”

“Yeah, Empathy. I can sense emotions when you're close enough.”

“Oh,” Dev said, taking a step back. “How close?”

“Five feet. By the way, yours feel muffled. Any idea why?”

Dev cocked his head to the side. “Muffled? How so?”

“They just feel like theres interference, like a staticy telephone.”

Dev thought about it, then snapped his fingers. “Could it be my axiom?”

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“You have an axiom?” Jay exclaimed, surprised. “There weren’t any people in my group who had one. Lucy said that she had a person with one in her group, but he left before the trial started.”

“Weird. We had three in my group. I wonder if it was my group or yours that was unusual.”

“Probably yours. “Jay said with a grin. “Can you show it to me?”

Dev hesitated, and Jay continued, “You don’t have to do it. Tell you what, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“Deal,” Dev said, looking at Jay funny for the off color joke.

He reached down into his soul and triggered his axiom, watching in satisfaction as it watched over Jay, and then Lucy, who snapped her head around to look at him like a deer in the headlights.

“What the hell was that?” Jay exclaimed.

“Sisu,” Dev answered, “Unwavering will and endless determination.”

“Wow, and I thought my empathy was great. That stuff hits like a truck.”

Dev smiled proudly.

“I guess I should show you my empathy. You want me to use it on you or share it with you?”

“Why not both?”

Jay laughed, “Fair enough. Two truths and a lie.”

Dev thought for a second, than answered, “My family isn’t from Solumbra; I have a little brother; I’m a decent cook.”

“You don’t have a little brother.” Jay answered immediately. “You either have a big brother or little sister.”

“Little sister,” Dev confirmed.

“Are you really not from Solumbra?” Lucy asked.

“I was born here, my parents were not.”

“Oh,” she said, seeming disappointed. “I’ve never met anyone else from off planet outside my family before the instructors.”

“You're from off planet?” It was Dev’s turn to be surprised. Hardly anyone came to the planet except for just before the ascension. It was notoriously hard to get to, requiring spacecraft and careful navigation to not be thrown off by the moons. Almost everyone was descended from half a million colonizers from five hundred years ago.

“Yeah, my family moved here after my dad got a job on the southern continent. My earliest clear memory is looking down at the world from the window of the space craft that took us here.”

Lucy blushed, realizing she might have overshared, and fell silent before running back inside.

“Do you still want me to share my empathy with you?” Jay asked after a moment.

“How about we wait and do it later?” Dev suggested, “Didn’t we want to explore the temple?”

“Yeah. We should help Lucy, don’t want her getting all the good stuff.”

They went inside, and Jay showed him to the sleeping area. There was a large room with many bunk beds, and a group of smaller individual rooms.

“Me and Lucy have each taken one of the private bunks. You can take another, or one of the bunks in the main room. I don’t particularly care.”

Dev brought his stuff in and took a private room. It was a simple bed and mattress, but it was likely far more comfortable than the ground had been.

They left the room and started looking for Lucy. After checking the kitchens and what turned out to be a storage closet full of cleaning supplies, they found her in the temple’s sanctuary, looking at an altar made from the same stone as the mosaic outside.

As soon as they walked in, she turned around a gestured for them to be quiet.

They joined her, and Jay whispered, “What’s up?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy answered. “I just feel like its a good idea to be quiet. Something is up with the altar.”

Looking at it, Dev concurred. There were a great many figures carved on it, with pride of place going to what looked like a sleeping infant dragon made of jewels, being tended to by the other people.

“Yeah, I feel like that guy is going to wake up if we disturb him,” Dev said.

“What are we supposed to do then?” Jay asked, irritably. “We can’t just not take the trial.”

“Look around. Maybe we can check the altar for hints.”

They split up, Jay searching the pews while Lucy took the connected rooms.

Dev decided to check the altar, carefully skirting around it to get a look from all sides. The left and right had more servants, but the back had a tree filled with fruit that the people were picking. He tried to get a glimpse of the underside of the altar, but it seemed to be a solid block of stone.

They reconvened after a few minutes to share their findings.

“The other rooms were what looked like food storage,” Lucy said, “I’m not sure why, but it looks like the enchantments failed and everything inside went bad.”

“I found nothing in the pews,” Jay grumbled. “Not a single book of prayer or instructional leaflet.”

“I think I found a clue,” Dev said, “There's a tree on the back of the altar, it looks like the others are taking it’s fruit to the dragon.”

“You think we need to make an offering?” Lucy asked.

“Probably.”

“Well,” Jay said in a raised, cheerful voice, “Looks like you’ll be teaching us foraging early.”

There was a sudden change in the air. Dev saw as the previously inanimate carvings seemed to glare at Jay, and the air filled with a sense of disapproval. Jay was clearly hit way harder than him, as he stumbled under the weight of it. Then, as quick as it came, it was gone.

They veritably ran out of the sanctuary as quickly as they could.

“What was that?” Jay exclaimed as soon as they were outside.

“That,” Lucy panted, “Was a warning.”

Jay had the grace to look shamefaced. “How was I supposed to know that would happen?”

“We were whispering for a reason!”

“I just hope that didn’t mess things up,” Dev said.

Jay looked worried. “You think it could have?”

“Probably not,” Dev admitted, “Like Lucy said, it was a warning.”

“Now, after that scare, I’m not in the mood to go down the mountain. How about instead, you show me how that mosaic works?”

They went outside, and Jay got ready to demonstrate, first stretching himself.

“The dragons start moving when you step on the mosaic, like I said. The edge of the activation zone seems to be the boundary of white stones, but they don’t kick you off until you reach the black stone.”

Jay demonstrated, stepping onto the white stones. The dragons in the mosaic lifted up off the ground and started flying in the center, but never exiting the black domain.

Jay stepped back off, and the dragons settled down, returning to being stone carvings.

“If two people step on the white stones, the dragons immediately kick them out. At least, they did with me and Lucy.”

Jay then stepped back on, and stepped inside the circle. Immediately, a dragon nearly hit him, with him only barely dodging. As he did so, the second dragon came from the other direction and slammed him out of the circle. Once he was out, the dragons immediately settled down to rest.

“Ouch,” he groaned, “That’s what always happens. I can dodge one, but the other always sneaks up on me. It’s the same with Lucy. We can both sense one but not the other.”

“You can sense it?” Dev asked, curiously.

“Yeah, as soon as you enter you can feel an aura around one of them, but the other feels still as the grave.”

Jay demonstrated a couple more times, being knocked back the same way each time, before Dev decided to try his luck when Jay had his breath fully knocked out of him by a fall.

After making sure Jay was okay, he stepped on the outer boundary, and the dragons came to life, lifting out of the ground. Oddly, they didn’t leave depressions where they’d been, just smooth black stone. He stepped inside, and immediately turned to keep track of the one that kept sneaking up on Jay, only to be blindsided when the other dragon attacked without him noticing, throwing him out of the ring.

“Now that’s odd.”

He tried again, and was hit the same way. With a third try, he suddenly realized that he could faintly feel the dragon that had been sneak attacking Jay. For his fourth try, he tried focusing on the other dragon, and felt nothing, but felt as the other dragon approached his back and he managed to dodge it without looking.

“Truly odd,” he said, falling into thought.