Cam watched as his father’s face twisted into a smile. It continued to twist, the man’s mouth contorting and his eyes narrowing. Tendrils of red smoke curled from his father’s cardigan and hair as his eyes turned violet.

“You were never enough,” the glowing apparition of his father spat. “You will never be enough.”

Before Cam’s eyes, the man’s body dissipated completely into a swirling, smoky, glowing ether. Cam jumped up from the plush maroon armchair, grabbed his backpack, and backed up toward the roaring hearth as a gust of unnatural wind extinguished the fire and plunged the room into cold darkness.

The red spirit that had been his father continued to swirl in the air and then darted down toward the chess table. The pieces began to glow in ghostly red. Cam clung to the mantle with one hand as, to his horror, the floor began to crumble and drop out of the room in large chunks, falling away into inky blackness. The crystal ball vibrated in his backpack. Cam ignored it and grabbed the mantle with both hands just as the wooden floorboards beneath him gave way, splintering in half and tumbling down into nothingness. The red glowing chess set and maroon armchairs fell too, alongside his father’s desk, the lamps, and the bookshelves.

He dangled from the wooden mantle, his fingers straining, wondering how long until the walls might crumble too. He couldn’t get back to where the marble door to the hallway had been, even if it had still existed.

He had enough mana to cast double jump again. But he had no way to determine when to push off and avoid splattering on whatever surface was below him.

If there’s a surface, he thought. There might not be a bottom and he would just fall forever.

He closed his eyes, quickly losing his grip on the mantle as his body dangled above the pit of darkness. He needed to be Eldren now, fully. He had to fight and complete the challenge. It was the only way he might ever get home. And it was, realistically, his only choice. He inhaled and let go of the mantle.

He fell downward, air rushing up over his face and his stomach rising into his chest. He turned himself over in the air so he could see below him. There was no sign of the ground. He continued to fall through the blackness.

What’s that?

A small, faint light. Was he imagining it? As he continued to fall he realized that he was not. He could see a small scattering of the dimmest red lights, like the glow of stars barely visible from Earth. The chess set.

The glows slowly intensified as he continued to fall. He was gaining on them. Suddenly they began to glow brighter more quickly.

I have to hope they’re on the ground.

“Double jump!” He could feel the tingling sensation in his arms and legs that let him know he had consumed mana to cast the spell. He pushed off the air, magically catching hold and abruptly reversing his direction momentarily ten meters up before beginning to fall again.

As the red glow of the chess pieces grew larger and larger he held his breath and finally kicked up off the air with his right leg at the last possible moment. He shot upward again, only five meters with the second jump, flipped so he was facing upward, and then began to fall—but not very far. He crashed onto a solid surface roughly, aggravating the still-fresh bruise on his back from the tumble down the well. He would need to improve his landing.

This time, however, Eldren did not lay on his back. He popped up, still in pain, looking around. The chess pieces were scattered on the ground. So was the furniture from his father’s office, splintered and crushed, having crashed against the ground.

He wished that he had a jar of the faefyre that Espella had carried in the swamp. It would indeed be useful and he made a mental note to ask Ardos how to get some if he got out of this place.

The area around him was quiet. He debated calling out but thought better of it, not wanting to alert anything else living in the darkness to his arrival.

Not a moment later, however, any hope he had carried that he had crashed down unnoticed vanished. A series of torches in sconces on the wall ignited in sequence, one after another as if someone had flipped a switch. Eldren winced and covered his eyes, letting them adjust to the bright flames, before looking around. He was in a large circular room—much larger than his father’s study. The walls were solid stone with no doors and no windows. The only other inhabitants of the space, however, seemed to be his father’s fractured possessions and furniture.

And the chest.

In the middle of the room, on a small circular platform raised about a foot off the ground, a medium-sized silver chest sat. It had not been in the study and looked very much like it had intentionally been placed on the dais.

He sighed and approached the chest, stepping over debris and scattered book pages and fluff from the chair cushions. Nothing happened. He knelt and examined it. He had no idea how to tell if it was rigged with a trap or magical ward and wished Ink was here with him to share her expertise. He took a deep breath and placed his hands on the chest lid.

Nothing happened.

He slowly opened the chest. A collection of items stared up at him. There were three small vials of a thin blue liquid and three small vials of a viscous red liquid he recognized from the infirmary at the Nottengrad Keep; they were health potions.

That makes these mana potions, he thought, examining the blue vials.

Next to the potions were what looked like a pair of thin, wireframe glasses and a small notebook. His backpack vibrated again. This time, Eldren slipped it off of his shoulder and took out the crystal ball.

Eyepiece of the Strategist (Uncommon Apparel)

Blessed by clerics of Phronesia, Goddess of Decisions, the wearer is gifted with the ability to briefly foresee the potential patterns of the movement of objects around them.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The pattern of potential movements of objects around them? His brain was working through the meaning of the sentence as he reached for the final item in the chest.

The notebook was small and nondescript. He opened it and read the first page, written in a loopy, thin script.

Choose one to begin.

He turned the page and saw three different descriptions.

Ignition (Beginner Spell - Rank 1 - 3MP)

This spell allows the caster to launch a ball of fire as a projectile. The fireball has a range of fifty feet in a straight line and deals low amounts of fire and force damage on impact.

Shards of Ice (Beginner Spell - Rank 1 - 3 MP)

This spell allows the caster to launch 2 shards of ice in rapid succession as projectiles. The icicles have a range of fifty feet in a straight line and deal low amounts of cold and force damage on impact.

Thoughtlift (Beginner Spell - Rank 1 - Variable)

This spell allows the caster to levitate and move objects through a telekinetic connection. The amount of mana consumed and damage done on impact varies with the weight of the object and the total distance moved. Only objects within fifty feet may be moved.

Eldren re-read the spells.

Choose one to begin.

Ardos had not told him that he would be offered a choice of what spell to learn. He assumed that each shrine simply contained one spell. Which one should he choose? Could he choose? He was technically level 2 but had, he thought, used his newly acquired spell opening to learn the witch-kind spell from the ringmaster. Nothing seemed to indicate he could not learn a new spell. Perhaps the witch-kind magic did not count?

And what does it mean to begin? It sounded like the challenge would start once he absorbed a spell word. Which one would help him the most? It almost felt like he was back at the table, playing their game, with Mikey asking him which school of magic he wanted to focus on.

Is the choice part of the challenge?

He considered the possibility. He did not know if the attack on his friends up on the surface was related to the shrine test and, if so, could only guess as to what it might be. But since he had gone down the well, he had been plunged into his memories — no— his fears and self-doubt. It had been a mind game and a test for him to see through. He considered the chess match. It had all been mental.

Eldren grabbed his spell book from his backpack and touched the words Thoughtlift in the small notebook with his other hand. The familiar warming sensation flowed down his arm from the notebook, through his chest. He conducted the magical knowledge like a wire, transferring it to his spell book. The violet and golden threads of energy flowed from his fingertip onto the page and became ink.

The crystal ball began to beep. It was a new sound Eldren had not heard it make before. He grabbed it.

Activate combat mode?

What?

“Uh—yes,” he said, half asking. He still felt incredibly foolish talking to the glass orb.

As soon as the words left his lips, the orb went hazy. But now, unexpectedly, it flew into the air, floating near him. A shimmering red number “10” and blue number “2” appeared in the glass. His current health points and mana points. Being able to track those would be extremely helpful, he thought.

As he marveled at his now-hovering crystal ball, a soft clattering and scraping sound drew his attention to the floor on the other side of the room. The chess pieces were slithering across the ground into a pile. He watched as they pulsed in red energy and began to grow—fast.

Shit.

Without thinking, he popped the wax-sealed stopper from one of the blue vials and chugged it. It tasted vaguely of blueberries and licorice. His crystal ball shimmered and the blue number dissolved and reappeared as a “10”, indicating his MP was recovered by the potion.

The chess pieces were now each taller than a human and nearly twice as thick. Rooks, knights, pawns, and bishops flipped around and rose in the air. Eldren watched carefully as one of the kings rose into the air and settled on top of a queen piece, forming a sort of glowing red black, and white torso. The other pieces began to assemble themselves as appendages of the chess piece construct. Knights and bishops formed its arms, while pawns and rooks formed its legs. The entire golem towered over Eldren, perhaps twenty-five or thirty feet tall.

Eldren smiled to himself, forgetting Cam’s worries for the first time since they had arrived in Aldimea.

“Let’s play,” he muttered to himself. He swiped in the air revealing the inventory panel of his crystal ball. He quickly pinched and made a pulling motion, this time remembering to hold out his other hand to catch the Staff of the Novice.

As the golem took its first lumbering step toward him, Eldren darted from the dais toward the behemoth. It flung a giant black and white ivory arm down, swiping through the air at him. One hit to his unprotected head would probably be lethal.

Eldren ducked and ran just under the swinging arm and ran between its legs. He felt the air rush past as the chess golem missed him. Once he was behind it, he turned and raised his staff high and brought it down hard behind what he thought was the construct’s left knee. He felt much less guilty smashing his staff against an inorganic opponent.

The goal of his attack had been to topple the monster by buckling its leg. Instead, the staff reverberated off the hard chess piece leg, stinging Eldren’s hands like a baseball bat that hits a ball wrong off the tip causing him to nearly drop it in surprise. The golem now moved a little more quickly, turning and delivering another sweeping backhand blow.

Eldren dodged but not fast enough. The knight piece at the end of the golem’s hand connected with his lower right side, sending him into the air and flying across the room.

A small beep sound rang out as his crystal ball zoomed through the air after him, its red number now a shimmering “3”. It had been a bad blow.

Why didn’t you double jump? he asked himself.

He would have to think faster in fights and remember he had spells.

The golem began to advance, its rook feet thundering against the stone toward where he lay crumpled and wheezing on the floor. It paused near the dais with the silver chest and stooped to pick up one of the giant pawn pieces that hadn’t become part of its body.

Oh no.

The golem reared back and hurled the pawn through the air. Eldren barely had time.

“Double jump!” he shouted as he frantically jumped. He shot into the air ten meters and watched the chess piece fly underneath him and shatter against the far wall. He pushed off the air again, angling his second jump so that it carried him to the far side of the room and further from the golem. His mana ticked down to 6.

He managed to land gracefully and quickly popped a red potion vial and watched his health restore to full in the crystal ball.

Thoughtlift! He didn’t know if he could cast the spell silently but it felt natural. It takes two people to play chess, he thought as he focused on one of the other spare pawns across the room. He instinctively visualized flinging the piece, flicking it with his mind, and pictured it hurtling through the air toward the golem’s torso. You won chess by taking your opponent’s king.

He was dismayed as the construct turned in time to see—could it see?—the piece coming. It brought its bishop and knight arms together in a guard position in front of the king piece and the pawn slammed into them, shattering and falling to the ground. His mana ticked down to “2”.

The golem staggered back a step under the impact and then lowered its arms. It was unscathed. It stooped to pick up a spare bishop from the ground and tossed it like a javelin, pointed top first, toward Eldren.

He didn’t have time to drink a mana potion so he couldn’t double jump. He panicked and dove out of the way onto the floor, barely avoiding becoming impaled by the bishop. It was far too close for comfort.

I need to anticipate it better, he thought scrambling to his feet.

It hit him. The glasses from the chest. He had carelessly put them back in the chest and left them there in his excitement to pick a spell. Foresee movement patterns. He needed to use the glasses.

The only problem was that the chess piece golem was standing on the dais between him and the chest.