As he looked around in confusion, Elach saw six other figures. Four of them he could not place, but one of them was Resthollow in all of their armored glory. And the last one was a woman he’d never seen before, wearing a tarnished gold necklace. She locked eyes with Elach and raised an eyebrow, wincing in what looked like sympathy as she stepped into the shadows. Elach grimaced and he shook his head, chastising himself for staring at an empty spot of wall while the other five people in the room deserved his attention.
The four other competitors looked like they had fared far better than Elach had, the worst wound among the group being a slash through a man’s orange knit sweater to display a chiseled chest and abs below, blood staining the edges of the cut but other than that there was no indication that he’d even been hurt. Claw marks, bite marks, and smaller slashes were the most common wound, but none of them bled. Unmarred skin showed through in each and every case, and Elach finally looked down at his own hands in shame at his own difficulties. His wounds were still torn open and angry, only held back by the goop from the mimics, and he felt all ten other eyes in the room fall upon him. He didn’t blame them; he stuck out like a half-hammered nail, and now all he could hope was that Resthollow would straighten him out.
“Time is up.” Resthollow said, their voice carrying no emotion whatsoever. “And you five are the remainder that have not cleared my trial or were escorted out. This is your final chance; what have you done that deserves the gift of my Issi?”
The tone of their voice shifted for the final words, carrying one very final meaning; Elach and the others did not deserve it. Out of the corner of his eye Elach noted three distinct reactions to those words; dejection, a bristling and straightening of the back, or introspection. He added his own to that group, exhaustion, and stared into Resthollow’s faceplate with silent acceptance. They’d offered him everything, and all he had to do was prove his worth. And he’d failed.
Elach stared into Resthollow’s faceplate with silent resolve. He might not have finished the trial, but he was going to fight tooth and nail to stand by Kayvee’s side. Resthollow would have just thrown them out to the gutters if they truly didn’t want anything to do with them; she was giving them a chance to prove themselves.
“There’s nothing for us to explain.” The man with the slashed shirt said with an irritated sneer. His arms were crossed, his posture closing himself off from the world. “You’ve already seen everything. So what’s the point of any of this? You want us to beg?” He turned and spat, missing Elach’s foot by a few centimeters. “Cuz that ain’t happening.”
“Then you may go.” Resthollow said, and a door to Elach’s right creaked open.
Resthollow spoke no more, and the man shifted his weight from foot to foot as he shifted his focus from Resthollow to the door to Resthollow once more. “I died fighting the huge metal scorpion through the golden door. I couldn’t do jack shit thanks to the place being a huge freakin’ desert, so when those things burst through the sand I was as good as dead. But I didn’t give up. My water Issi might have been useless, but I managed to take down two of three before the last one got a lucky hit in and finished me.”
“Could you not create water from the Issi you held?” Resthollow asked, their voice as monotone as ever.
The man shook his head and pointed to his chest. Elach finally noticed that the man’s veins were raised against his skin, but they were colourless like a clean spring. “I’m… weak.” The man admitted, his words scraping at him as he forced them out. “If I make water I won’t have enough Issi to use it. I need an outside source of water to be able to fight.”
“And you did not think to use the ink from the previous room to your benefit?”
“...I....” The man paused for a moment. “No. I did not.”
Resthollow shook their head. “If you do not use the gifts you already have to the best of their abilities, then you do not deserve more. You may return in six months to make another attempt if you so desire.”
The man didn’t argue, holding his head high with tears welling in his eyes as he made for the door. The other remaining man, a shorter bald man with a myriad of holes in his blue and white robes started to make a snarky comment, but Resthollow quieted him.
“Someone who realizes their shortcomings will work to overcome them. Do not mock someone for being weak, mock them for staying weak.” Resthollow said. “Now it is your turn. Please do explain how your death was more meaningful than his.”
The man didn’t flinch at Resthollow’s bait, just nodding his head and plastering on a smug grin. “I didn’t die. I finished the golden door and the silver door, then I got stuck in the basement. Those things,” The man shuddered, “kept me from doing anything. I fought them off for as long as I could, but then you called us back here.”
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“In the void, everything is not as it seems.” Resthollow said, folding their arms over their chest. “How long do you suppose you were down there? Ten minutes? Half an hour? Maybe an hour at most?”
“Twenty six minutes. I have an excellent internal clock.” The man said, raising his nose at Resthollow.
“Of course, twenty minutes.” Resthollow said with a hint of amusement in their voice. “And it took you forty minutes to clear the ink room, seventy three minutes to clear the golden desert, and one hundred and eight minutes to clear the silver peaks. Now, tell me, how much time does that add up to?”
“What do you,” the man started, but Resthollow continued talking over him.
“Two hundred and forty seven minutes.” Resthollow said, and the man’s face blanched. “Four hours and seven minutes. Now, unless you think I ended the trial two hours and fifty three minutes early, I think you should reflect on your time in the void. You may find the visage of your killers down there in the dregs of your memories.”
The man fell to his knees, feeling at his wounds while mumbling something incomprehensible. Resthollow didn’t so much as spare him a glance, and they did not offer a second chance to come back next solstice as they had for the man in the orange sweater.
“And how did you fall?” Resthollow asked a girl who looked to be the only one here who was younger than Elach, her clothes jet black but otherwise unmarred by any kind of attacks.
The girl looked down at the floor in shame. “I wasn’t ready for this. I thought I was, and my clan pushed me to go for it, but I didn’t even make it past the first room.” She took in a deep breath, then raised her head to look at Resthollow with clear eyes. “I drowned in the ink trying to kill the fish.”
“So you did.” Resthollow said, motioning at the door. “When you feel you are ready, you know where I am if you wish to try again.”
“Thank you.” The girl said, nodding to Elach and the one remaining woman as she crossed the room to leave. She shot a sad glance at the man who was still gibbering on the ground, and then she was gone.
“Now it’s just you and me, I suppose?” The remaining woman said in a soft, rhythmic voice. It took Elach a moment to realize she was talking to him. “Would you like to go first, or should I?”
“You shall go first, as you put it.” Resthollow said, manifesting a throne of steel that they sank into. “Why did you not complete the trial, Mig?”
“You couldn’t pay me enough to go down that hole.” Mig said, her muscular arms tensing at each side of her flowing white and green sleeveless robes. “I could sense them the moment I opened up that door; they would take anything I could throw at them and shrug it off like nothing had happened. Tell me, were they completely invulnerable, or was there some way I could have harmed them?”
Resthollow chuckled and shot a look at Elach. “Normally I would not tell you, since you could spread that information to other candidates, but hesitation in the face of certain demise is exactly what you should be showing.” Resthollow raised their hand, and a pedestal with an amulet bearing their symbol on it rose from the ground. “Welcome to our guild. And no, there was no way of defeating them with your current Issi at your current power level.”
“I needed to be stronger, then?” Mig asked, taking the amulet with far less reverence than Elach had been expecting and pulling it over her head. She then grabbed her long hair in one hand and fluffed it out from beneath the steel chain, the amulet hanging over her chest just like every other one of Resthollow’s vassals Elach had seen.
“You needed to be stronger,” Resthollow said, putting one palm to the air, “or weaker.” She continued, raising the other one. “Right now, your body is so inundated with Issi that you cannot dissociate yourself from it, which would have allowed you to pierce through their gelatinous hide. But with more power, you could have overpowered their natural defences and blown them to bits.”
Mig nodded, poking at their amulet like she was expecting something to happen. “So are we bonded now? Or is there more to this?”
“Once we are finished here,” Resthollow motioned at Elach, “We will seal the bonding with the proper constraints and powers exchanged. Now, how did you end up on the practitioner’s path, gardener?”
Mig straightened up at the word gardener, looking at Elach with a newfound appreciation. “I thought I couldn’t sense any Issi from you. How the heck did you end up here?”
“Well, my partner kind of abandoned me. And I guess that meant I was forced down the, um, practitioner’s path? Right?” Elach looked to Resthollow for confirmation, and they nodded. “I killed the inkskipper, went down into the void with the tablet, and cleared that. It wasn’t easy.” Elach motioned to the tapestry of wounds that were still covered by goop. “And then just as I was about to go through one of the other doors, I was teleported here.”
“Impressive.” Mig said, and Resthollow laughed a hearty laugh.
“More than impressive. He outperformed fully realized practitioners without any Issi to call his own.” Resthollow motioned to a pillar that had risen in front of Elach. “I would be remiss not to offer him a place in our guild. Alongside his partner, of course. And I don’t mean the boy who fought you in the elevator.”
Kayvee had passed. Elach’s smile reflected back at him in the amulet, all his worries leaving him as he picked up the steel circle and placed it around his neck. “What now?”
“Now,” Resthollow motioned for Mig to walk over to their throne, “We bond.”