The first thing she felt was pressure, Pressure from all sides and while gradual it was steadily increasing making her feel like a snail under a child’s foot. She quickly pulled up the Trial screen hoping for an explanation
Trial: Mental Fortitude (rare) 6
Survive 5 continuous minutes
Time Limit: 12 hours
She sent it away again. Okay that was spooky. More than a little spooky it was terrifying. It wasn’t a physical pressure but the feeling you get when overwhelmed by the things happening, or when dealing with too many tasks at once. Or like everybody was screaming at her to do something that was literally impossible. The pressure increased further. It was focused entirely on her head like a headlock that constantly tightened. Beth tried to distance herself from the induced pain. Pulling herself inwards mentally. She recited the most recent card order she had memorised, repeating it over and over. Closing her eyes and focusing on nothing else. Mentally pulling herself in and visualising her awareness forming a small ball in her head. The ball that was her awareness pulsed as she recited the cards as though it was the vacuum pulling in all her awareness. The pain lessoned as she pulled in, willing herself to escape It didn’t decrease the pressure, it just made it seem further away or as though it was happening to somebody else. But she could still feel it on the edge of her conscious. Trying to crush her completely.
Eventually as aggressively as it had started it cut out and she was back to normal. Sure enough the timer had completed and she’d survived. The question now was if she was willing to go through it all again. Fortunately there didn’t seem to be a time limit on her making this decision. She was finally aware of her surroundings and sure enough she was still in the same room. Not that she had even slightly had the capacity to take that in at the time. She settled on the bed and breathed deeply. She would keep going, she had to. She just wished the Trials hadn’t shifted in intensity quite so much. Clearly whatever advantages having level one in the skill would provide would prove instrumental but to gain them she’d need to abandon the current mission. Something she was fairly averse to doing. She noticed the button to stop the effect had moved and was now in the centre of the desk in front of her when she started the Trial so at least that was something.
The next Trial was no easier. In fact it was almost identical in every way. Every way except length that is. It was twice as long and Beth was feeling every second. It thudded and rang in her ears as she tried to distance herself from the effects. She was doing something wrong, something very very wrong. If she didn’t change her approach she was sure she wouldn’t be able to go much further, or even finish the next challenge at all. But also her thoughts were coming out as a crawl she was so focused on distancing herself from the pressure she was feeling. Battling through though she did survive the attempt and what felt like at least three eternities later the Trial had ended.
Beth let out a gasp for air as the pressure receded. She didn’t know what she was doing wrong but she also knew she couldn’t survive it if there was another round. Especially if it increased the time frame again.
Her awareness returning to her she felt a moisture next to her ears as though she had been swimming and her ears had only just popped. She wiped it away and was alarmed to have her fingers come away bloody. Whatever level of real the pressure had been it had caused her ears to bleed, Beth didn’t even want to begin to imagine the damage that implied she had received. She paced the small room, avoiding the corner with the two rifts in. She was going to keep going, she had to, bleeding be damned. But she needed to have something change first otherwise she was sure she would simply pass away.
Re-approaching the desk and the almost comically large red button, Beth decided to press it intrigued as to it’s effect now the pressure had ceased on it’s own. Beth was feeling much more curious than wary and without a second thought hit the button. She then let out a scream as the pounding effect hit her head again.
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Rapidly she hit the button again on instinct and breathed easy when the effect stopped once more. She hadn’t done any mental preparation for the effect and it burned deep into her soul.
She took a break to eat and generally attempted to avoid looking at the button. But it was still there in crimson glory and Beth knew what she had to do next. She had to unleash the effect in a controlled environment and hope against hop. Hopefully she could train herself to fight against the ability. It must be feasible and the button was clearly there for a reason.
There might be some natural environments that a replicated the effect or even creatures that caused it but Beth had access to none of these. Instead she had this button that caused her significant pain. She couldn’t even afford to leave, after all next time she’d be thrown straight into the Trial and Beth was sure that would result in her death. Her options were to power through and learn to cope or give up on the idea of being able to cope at all and leave the skill forever at the level it was.
Gritting her teeth she pressed the button once more and almost immediately drew herself in much like she had previously to get through the Trial. A strategy she freely admit hadn’t been enough, but it did make the pain lessen and that was all she could think of in that moment.
Knowing she had to fight against her instincts and change up her approach she pushed her awareness back out, willing herself to become aware of her body once more as the pain she felt only increased. Despite the pain she kept pushing, she had to. She visualised her awareness going out further and further until it reached the extremities of her being, then however she felt something change. The ball she had pictured as her willpower and sense of self had reached the outermost layer of her body but then it began to darken in her sight, like layers of paint over the same spot. This caused something to shift in the pain she felt. Rather than sharp constant stabbing pain it became a spread out slightly lessened pain. The difference between being stabbed and being hit by a bat.
Her relief at the change caused her to gasp in elation and she dropped whatever it was that was causing the difference in pain.
The pain came back full force and she slammed the button once more creating herself a reprise from the self inflicted torture. She'd found something different to do. Not necessary better than pulling herself small to reduce the area of pressure but that potentially had much more room for growth. Growth that would hopefully help her decrease the effect further and to get her through the rest of the Trials she had to face that day. Possibly even beyond that point. She knew she couldn’t practise this forever before continuing. Not in the least because of the imposed Trial time limit.
Beth still had almost half a day but she was feeling wrung out, Like she had been squeezed to remove every drop of energy and willpower she had had been taken. Even her core was feeling empty of mana though she had no explanation or understanding of how it could have been used up. What she needed now was to sleep.
Beth woke several hours later feeling like a new woman. She was energised and ready to go. Nothing proved this better than the hour long procrastination that immediately followed as she did almost anything she could to avoid actually pressing the button. She wasn’t masochistic and the pain she knew she would have to endure to improve was not an exciting idea. But running away from the problem wasn’t her kind of thing either so eventually she came to terms with what she had to do and pressed the button once more, starting the torture all over again.
Beth found it easier this time. She still started by visualising a small ball that was her consciousness and expanding it to cover her whole body, bringing her in tune with all her feelings before it began to darken and the pain lessened. This caused the pressure to increase on her will but the practise Beth had had with her mana helped slightly here. She could maintain the and after several hours she found she wanted to push it further. She started to call the effect a shell and giving it a name strengthened her affinity with it. She pushed further but couldn’t reinforce the shell any further, the deeper colour she now acknowledged as purple not changing in hue further. She did however notice it begin to move, almost pulse ever so slowly as she focused. This once more was affecting the pain she was feeling. As it pulsed out the effect lessened as though being pushed back, On withdrawal the pain reappeared but only after a moment. Eventually she had to bring the personal trial to an end. The constant breaks had meant she’d burned through the 12 hours period with a lot less time dedicated to training than she would have liked. Not that she would have been willing to endure much further. With no small sense of trepidation and just ten minutes remaining she stepped through to the next Trial, putting all her hope on the pulsing shell mental image she had created. Knowing if it failed she almost certainly wouldn’t be returning home.