“I don’t.” Paui shook her head. “Actually, I do have one. If I don’t step through that banner, will the timer start anyway?”
“If you do not begin the trial within thirty minutes of the end of my explanation, you will be disqualified. And you are no longer allowed outside of the whitestone barrier. Otherwise, you can delay beginning the trial for as long as you see fit.” Thana said. “Does that sufficiently answer your question?”
Paui nodded. “It does, thanks.”
“Are there any further questions?”
“No.”
“Then your trial begins now.” Thana said, a large timer appearing above the whitestone barrier. It was frozen at ten minutes, and Sechen had to assume Thana had made it so Paui couldn’t see that from the inside.
Thana appeared next to Sechen in a puff of Issi. “This may end up taking quite a while if Paui is doing what I suspect she is. Could I fetch you anything to hold you over until lunch?”
“Water and whatever Hojo’s got for snacks, please.” Sechen said, turning her head towards Thana’s voice. She was already gone. “Huh. Guess I should’ve expected that.”
With Thana occupied for maybe a handful of minutes, Sechen directed her entire attention to Paui’s methodical, but in no way slow, combing of the clearing. She walked lines up and down the field, her eyes glued to the ground, kneeling every now and again to feel at the grass and kick up some dirt. She was marking certain parts of the clearing, but squinting alone wasn’t enough to bring whatever Paui was marking into focus. She’d gotten through about a fifth of the clearing before Thana returned with a huge water jug and a container wrapped in twine under one arm, and a folding table under the other. She set everything down and nodded at Sechen, disappearing for a handful of seconds before returning with two chairs.
“Thanks.” Sechen said as Thana finished setting up the table. “Standing still for a few hours would be murder on my feet.”
“This will benefit the both of us, so it is truly nothing.” Thana said as she slid down on her own seat. “Has she been doing this for as long as I have been gone?”
“She has.” Sechen confirmed.
“Exactly as I had expected. Though I do hope she has a good sense of how long she has taken, and how much time she has remaining.” Thana reached for the twine-wrapped package and the string fell in a puff of Issi, taking a golden-brown pastry for herself and pushing the box in front of Sechen. “Take as many as you’d like, but I would greatly appreciate it if you would leave one of the cupcakes decorated with chocolate shavings for me.”
Sechen glanced down at the package and wondered just how much of a glutton Thana thought she was. There were another nine pastries of varying shapes and size, six cupcakes in three pairs of two, and what looked like an entire pan of brownies under everything else. She raised an eyebrow and started to speak, but Thana’s hand entering her field of view cut her off. She’d already polished off her pastry and was halfway through a cupcake just seconds after taking it.
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” Sechen laughed, removing a pastry that was filled with a red fruit filling and a yellow cupcake dotted with orange berries. “Does having speed Issi mean you need to eat more?”
“No, I just very much enjoy sweets.” Thana said, wiping her mouth of crumbs that didn’t match the colour of either treat Sechen had seen her take. “Though I do suppose I can slow down. There’s no reason not to savor Hojo’s exquisite creations.”
Paui worked the clearing for another twenty minutes, which was more than enough for Thana to finish off everything in Hojo’s package save for the three desserts Sechen had saved for herself. At minute twenty-two Thana ran off to fetch more treats, returning at minute twenty-four, two minutes before Paui seemed content with her markings and stepped up to the banner. She hopped in place twice and shook her arms at her sides, bolting through the banner without any hesitation. She scanned the clearing for the next banner, turning on her heel as she didn’t find it in front of her, and sprinting off towards the lower right corner of the clearing.
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She kept up a breakneck pace for one minute, slowed to a near crawl to catch her breath for exactly ninety seconds, then picked her pace back up. Every time she completed a cycle her top speed diminished, yet she was still going strong as she passed through the thirtieth banner. The timer read nine minutes and fifty two seconds, with nineteen seconds remaining of paused time, and Paui seemed to know just how long she had left. Not exactly how long, as she started getting nervous around the four minute mark, and after plodding through one last banner at the two minute mark she tapped out.
Thana’s voice cut through the clearing the moment Paui’s right hand slapped against her left shoulder. “You have amassed sixty-two points, and zero point deductions. Excellent work, hopeful Paui.” Issi surged through the whitestone carvings, and Paui gasped in surprise. “You have been granted Runfree’s fast Issi for the next portion of the trial, which will begin in five minutes. Prepare yourself.”
Sechen didn’t bother waiting to see if Thana had returned to her seat before speaking. “Was all that just a reason to tire her out?”
“Partially.” Thana said through a full mouth, though it only lasted a single word. “As in the previous trial, where hopefuls were judged based on their overuse of Issi, this trial judges overuse of their flesh. The results do matter, however, as the results of both sections of this trial are added together in the final consideration.”
Paui dropped to the ground and sat cross-legged, a pollen-yellow dust surrounding her in a lazy swirl. “So what’s the next part of this trial? Does she just run around a whole lot until another Runfree clone pops out and attacks her?”
“No; the fast Issi trial is quite different from the fluidity trial. Keep in mind that these were designed for multiple hopefuls to undertake at once, so most of the space is wasted when Paui undergoes them by herself.” Thana drew a line in powdered sugar on the table, then crossed another line near the top end. “If she was with other hopefuls, Paui would be given a small stretch of land for her own, but in this case she will be given a quarter of the clearing as a sandbag for her current abilities.” Thana widened the gap between the rows of powdered sugar by four times. “As I will be explaining the trial to Paui in mere moments, I will not waste words explaining it twice.”
A gust billowed over the clearing, blowing Paui’s hair out behind her as the Issi in the clearing spun up for the trial proper. A see-through projection of white Issi began slowly working towards Paui, a ball of bright yellow Issi hovering above a ramp a dozen feet away from Paui. As the ramp advanced it split into two platforms, the ball meandering over to the further one while leaving behind an obvious trail of equally bright Issi.
“The trial of fast Issi now lies before you.” Thana said simply. Sechen reached over into the second package to take advantage of her absence, grabbing a sandwich on dark brown bread. “You must follow the trail the guide leaves on the field as perfectly as you can, adapting to the constantly shifting terrain. You will earn increasing points the closer you follow the guide, and the Issi provided to you will be automatically refilled as long as you remain in contact with the trail. After thirty minutes have elapsed the terrain will drastically shift in ten minute intervals and the guide’s trail will reset, which will be preceded by a blinking of the terrain under you for fifteen seconds to give you a chance to retreat to solid ground. If you touch the guide within those fifteen seconds you will earn a more advantageous reset position and an injection of Issi. There is no time limit aside from that which your body forces upon you. There will be no extreme surprises such as in the previous trial, though there will be events that are clearly laid out minutes before they start. There are no questions allowed. Your starting position has been marked, where you must wait until the trail touches you, and then you may begin.”
Paui tensed her shoulders and looked around, finding a blue arrow pointing to her starting point. She’d barely made it as the Issi wind picked up, just enough that it looked inconvenient to run directly towards, and the platforms shifted to solid objects of pure white. They didn’t move all that quickly to start, but Sechen knew they wouldn’t stay that way for long. Paui pushed off in a burst of Issi the second the trail met the center of her chest, moving almost too quickly for the slowly advancing platforms. She slowed down as she reached the first divergence of platforms, easily jumping the ten-foot gap between the two with the aid of Runfree’s Issi and settling into a slow jog twenty feet behind the yellow ball.
“You might want to find something to distract yourself, as I have to administer this trial as if those taking it were hopefuls, and not a seasoned practitioner without access to her Issi.” Thana said as her chair clattered under her sudden appearance. Sechen turned to see what was different this time, and saw Thana flipping through a book at a rate of one page every two seconds. There was a stack of books off to her right, and Sechen expected that wouldn’t be enough if Thana kept her blistering reading pace. “The first thirty minutes are to get the practitioners used to fast Issi, something that Paui seems far more accustomed to than I had expected, and without any interruptions or events during that time she will not have a single problem. Is there anything I can procure for you?”
Sechen shook her head. “No, I’m happy to just watch. Thanks for the offer, though.”
Thana’s words were punctuated by the flipping of pages. “Suit yourself. None of these books are a part of any series, if you wish to read one of them at any point.”