Finally, the day of my punishment ended. Astri and Lyle both came to pick me up from my “cell” in the third study and bring me to breakfast down at the school campus. Unlike the previous days when I had been out, there was nobody practicing in the green space between the Library and the School proper. It felt empty without their presence, but I supposed it made sense. My friends had emphasized the importance of the annual tests, which determined if people moved up a level in the School. It made sense that people wouldn’t be wasting time and mental energy before those.
There were downsides to eating breakfast at the School though as opposed to the Library. Namely, it was a lot busier in the morning. It was vastly busier than it was when I had been coming down for lunch, but Astri told me that was because breakfast had a shorter timeframe.
Lyle had been quiet, his gaze watching the world but his mind clearly elsewhere, teasing over some problem. At Astri’s comment though, he rolled his eyes. “That, and nobody wants to be late to the Novice Test. Even us, there would be consequences.” Neither he nor Astri looked like they had ever experienced those consequences, but from the rushing of the other students, it was likely they were troubling.
Whatever the cause, we ate breakfast really quickly. I thought I was going to have to register with the School, but Astri explained that the Abbess had already done that. After the tests today, they would show me to my new rooms as a Novice at Colvale Monastery School. I found myself surprised to realize that I was a little enthusiastic. Sure, the last few days of punishment hadn’t been pleasant, but the idea of learning how to do actual magic was really exciting. Living in the middle of it in the Library was a wonder every day: watching people fly about the central core, use little hovering balls of light over their shoulder to read a book, or even just the simple – or maybe they were complex, I didn't know – enchantments that made the shower and toilet work. It was all quite fascinating, and I couldn’t wait to learn.
The press of bodies did not let up as we went to go leave breakfast. Astri got separated a few times, but Lyle stuck close to me, a hand between my shoulders to keep a physical link between us. It was a warm and comforting presence in the press. I wasn’t particularly afraid of crowds, but the strength of the bodies knocking into me was a little overwhelming, so I was glad for Lyle’s support. He leaned up and spoke into my ear. It wasn’t a whisper, that little soft hissing noise that would get lost in the crowd, but it was a still a soft sotto voce that would fade if he were any further away. “It’s not normally this bad. Everything is just a little more crowded because of the Festival.”
I looked back and smiled at him in thanks. Once we were clear of the doors to the cafeteria, the press let up a little, and it relaxed to almost nothing once we were outside of the campus grounds. The crowd could now have been any happy crowd of festival-goers at a street festival back home. There were only two things that shook that image. The first was that everybody was wearing the same black robes that made up the school uniform. There was a range of ages from late teens to people who looked to be about my age, and there was a riot of colors of the stripes that indicated their affinities, and I was finally looking closely enough to start to be able to tell apart the variations that indicated Novice, Initiate, Apprentice and Journeyman uniforms.
The second thing was our destination. The giant Arena rose up before us. My mind had grasped at its stupendous size when I had seen it from the Grand Abbot’s window and I had been astounded to see it from the subway system. But watching it grow as we approached it was an entirely new experience. I had previously judged that it was roughly equivalent to an American football stadium, but now I wasn’t entirely sure. It was absolutely massive, and in a style more reminiscent of Rome’s Coliseum but with massive stairways descending around the outside. I wasn’t an expert in grand architecture, but by the time we were entering it, it was blotting out the morning sun and a good part of the sky. Lyle guided me towards the second tier of seats as the press tightened around us.
The sheer verticality of the interior of the Arena threatened to steal my breath. There was no gradual sloping of seats like in stadiums back home with terraced sections. Instead, rows of benches seemed almost stacked on top of each other. There was no handicapped accessibility on our level, that was sure. There also hadn’t been the kind of vendors & bathrooms wrap-around that I was familiar with from stadiums back on Earth. Every stairway had had an alcove with several bathrooms in it, but that was it. There were no connecting hallways linking different stairways together, no restaurants and places for people to stand or walk around. If you were at the Arena, you were in the stands or in the center. The consequence of this was that there was a lot more seating available than I had originally thought. Looking around, there was room for easily 100,000, possibly even more. The Arena was probably only two-thirds full right now, but people were still filtering in.
The section we were in was entirely students from the Monastery, and I looked around to see that this was one of several sections dominated by the black of the students – or possibly also the monks of the Monastery itself, I couldn’t tell at a distance. I couldn’t see any of the sections above or below us, as the seating sections were all completely in line with each other. This set-up meant that not only was there a lot of seating, but the central area of the Arena was larger than any I had ever seen. It wasn’t just the playing field for a sporting event. The Arena’s central floor was a near-perfect circle that probably had a close to 1000’ in diameter. If it had been empty, it would have been an absolutely massive sandpit.
However, it was not empty. Instead, taking up nearly all the space was the centerpiece of the Novice Test. When I first learned that all the testing took place in the Arena, I had thought that it would be some kind of gladiatorial event involving trial by combat. Astri had looked sour as she had disabused me of that notion, hinting at a personal grievance. “No, this isn’t some kind of battlemage academy that is obsessed with only glory and victory in battle. Those exist, but the Monastery has always taught that there is more to magic than fighting with it.”
Lyle had laughed while Okyor had reached out to rest a hand on Astri’s elbow in concern. Lyle had explained. “Astri is just annoyed because her family sponsors the Confederation’s premiere battlemage academy back in the capital. They always like to lord their might in battle over the rest of us. Besides, she didn’t do so well in the combat test that is the Initiate Test.” He had wrapped his arm around me in a side-hug. “So don’t you worry, there is some combat testing. But you won’t have to worry about until the Initiate level.” A quick, almost reflexive circle of energy had deftly batted aside the pocket of hardened air that Astri had tried to flick at him but had taken long enough to form that he’d had his counter ready long before her attack, which had kind of only proved his point.
In the present, Lyle was sitting pressed up against me on the Arena’s benches. He pointed down to the construct on the field. “See, there’s the obstacle course I told you about. The Novice Test is always a simple one in theory. Magic is about solving problems. Novices only have to solve a simple one. How to get from there,” he pointed at the base of the construct, “to there,” he pointed to its top, “and back down,” the last point was on the far side of the arena from the first.
It is true that that sounded super simple in theory. However, there were some complications. First, the height of the construct was easily level with the third or even fourth tier of the seating. It was centered in the Arena, but I was still not certain those on the first level could see it. Second, that height was only the first of the obstacles. If I unfocused my eye, the whole thing had a vaguely pyramidal shape, but it took deliberately not seeing details to do that. First, there was no solid connection between the various areas. The top was actually just floating on a glowing tendrils of magic with various other, similarly floating, platforms rotating about it at various heights. Some of the platforms were regular in shape, like a patio had been floated up, while others were irregular lumps of dirt, clay or stone. Some stretches that were easily 20’ tall only had metal cables holding two platforms together. Before even reaching that middle part, there were things that looked like a conventional obstacle course that had to be surmounted. Finally, just below the actual peak, there was a glowing nimbus of light. It didn’t hurt to look at directly, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable either.
“What’s the light for?”
“It’s to stop people from just teleporting to the top. You can’t jump to what you can’t see, at least not without a lot more power than Novices generally have access to. They want to make sure you can use a variety of magic, not just have a single trick.”
That was a shame. That had been exactly how I’d been thinking I could beat this Test, when I tested next year as a Novice. I had been told that it was not uncommon to wait before Testing. Just like none of my friends were Testing this year to rise above the rank of Apprentice, just under half of the Novices would wait until their second year to even attempt the Test. Most who took it passed it – but enough failed that the average length of a Novitiate was two years - but you were allowed three fails before the Monastery kicked you out. You were also allowed to drop out before then, if you knew you would never be able to pass. The same timing held for the Initiates. Apprentices and Journeymen were different in that there was no requirement that they start their own tests after any number of years. Apprentices could only be expelled by their Masters if they failed to make adequate progress. Once you were a Journeyman though, you never stopped being one unless the Grand Abbot himself stripped you of your rank for offenses to the Monastery. You were expected to go on a journey to grow in knowledge and power – or already have done that before arriving to the Monastery and transferring in as a Journeyman from another academy – and be ready to commit to a life at the Monastery. That commitment requirement was why most Journeymen never returned and the rank was widely considered the usual graduate one for the Monastery School.
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Lyle leaned back on braced hands, his arm actually providing a bit of a back rest for me too with how we were pressed together. “The Novice Test is a mad scramble that it is fun enough. Fortunately, it’ll be over quickly. They only have 30 minutes to complete the whole course. Only about half will make it.”
“How did you complete it?” I put my hand on his knee as I asked him the question. I didn’t exactly have a lot of romantic experience, but I was in my late 20s, so I recognized when someone was trying to give signals – at least ones this obvious – even if I wasn’t used to receiving them from men. The Abbess had already said that people were going to think we were lovers, and that that was probably my best defense against discovery as a mind mage or Hero, since it would give a reason for Lyle to be around me. He was my friend, so I didn’t want to have to abandon him for politics, so I decided to lean into the lovers angle a bit, although we’d have to have a conversation about how far we took any reality. To try to balance my approach, I also looked at Astri. “And how about you? Or the others – where are they anyway?” I hadn’t seen either Eliandra or Okyor since the Abbess’s Apprentices had fetched me from the study.
Astri took the lead in answering, as Lyle seemed to be thinking something very important. “It’s the Festival, so Ellie is likely spending some time with her family from town. As for Okyor, uh …” She hesitated, scratching at her throat, “I don’t … actually know where he is.” Something in her tone made that less than convincing. She hastened to move past that. “As for the Test, I’m an air mage. I didn’t have enough strength to just fly up – that would be a rare feat for a Novice – but once I got through the initial obstacle course, I could use a Jump spell to scale the space and a Slow Fall one to come back down. With that active, I could float over the obstacle course of the second half.”
Lyle took his turn to answer the question. “Mud can be manipulated by both water and earth magic. As an Apprentice, I’m now trying to figure out how to combine magic types, but either works individually too. So I used some water to make a little pile of mud. A second spell pulled the mud up over me, and then I could send it out to get me between the various platforms and obstacles, like a sticky rope that wrapped around me.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t the cleanest way, but since it was my mud, I could just shuck it off afterwards. The spells don’t have names, Astri prefers to learn her spells from a manual, I like to have a little more flexibility, so I make them up. I don’t think anybody bothered to write down the spell diagram for mud manipulation.”
We chatted for a few more minutes about various other tactics that they had seen people use. It turned out that Lyle had been a year ahead of Astri and they had both taken the Novice test their first year. Lyle had held back for a year on the Initiate Test while Astri had raced ahead, which is how they had both made it to Apprentice for the term that was finishing with this Festival. Apparently, there were a lot of ways people could use magic to move around. Neither of them knew any of the Novices this year, so they had no idea what to expect. Astri definitely noticed my hand on Lyle’s knee, but beyond a slight twitch in her eyebrows had not acknowledged it or mentioned it.
Our attention was drawn as a massive wave of sound washed over the crowd. It sounded vaguely like a bell tolling, but was not the work of an actual bell. Instead, the sound emanated from a man who had just appeared at the center of the Arena, floating above the destination for the Novice Test. While he was far away, the dark skin and large crown on his head clearly identified him as the Grand Abbot. “Citizens of Colvale, welcome to the Nevernight Festival!” While his voice was pitched as a booming cadence, it was magic that was propelling it out over the crowd, which had fallen (mostly) silent at his appearance. “Every year, we celebrate the progress of our community with three weeks to revelry and a demonstration of the prowess of the Colvale Monastery which protects the whole of the Valley!” A cheer rose from the crowd, eager for the show. “For a thousand years, the Monastery has stood watch, protecting the people from best and foe, enriching our society, and offering honor to the Goddess! We celebrate that history, we celebrate that accomplishment. We celebrate those who have accomplished it. Now, as we begin the 990th Nevernight Festival, let us celebrate our lives!” A chime sounded out over the Arena as the cheering picked up again.
A procession of people entered from one side of the Arena. Procession is the wrong word though, as that makes it sound orderly. It was a uncoordinated dash by a group of people who started to mill around the entrance to the obstacle course part of the pyramid in a loose mob. A few of them started to circulate among the others, while most clustered up into small groups. The Grand Abbot boomed out from where he was floating. “Behold the Novices!” Whoops and jeers sounded out from the crowd. “Overcoming obstacles is the first thing that a mage must do.” He leaned heavily on the word obstacles to scattered laughs from the crowd. “So let us see how they overcome these. They know their task, you know their task. Ascend and descend, all within the time limit. But were that all they faced!” From a viewing box on the third tier, and handful of other individuals stepped out into the air. Some moved with a walking motion, others just simply floated up into position.
The Grand Abbot moved into formation with the others, so that there were six people spread out around the pyramid. “Novices, overcome the obstacles to get where you want to be! Let the running of the Novices, commence!”
Two things happened at once. First, the Novices all took off sprinting into the obstacle course. They jumped, climbed, dove and clambered with impressive physical fitness. The other thing that happened was that the six magi floating in the air – presumably instructors from the Monastery – started to cast a number of spells. The spells they were casting quickly expanded out to multiple circles, making them substantially more complex and powerful than I had mostly seen before. They glistened in a few colors. A few were the glowing clear energy of air magic, I also saw brown, blue, green, grey – more metallic than the pale thing of death magic – and several other colors. None of the spells seemed to target the obstacle course, but the ascent up the pyramid became even more treacherous as the spells took effect.
One of the instructors was fond of mist, which descended to envelop multiple paths. Another summoned what looked to be a wind tunnel that picked up sand from the Arena floor and wove it into a stinging current. The Grand Abbot cast a bunch of spells with the brown of Earth magic, but they just landed on various platforms, not seeming to do anything for now. Nor were his the only traps, as a variety of spells also landed on platforms or cables that hung around the pyramid.
Only a handful of the Novices appeared to struggle with the obstacle course, the rest racing through with no struggle. But then the fiendish nature of the spells that the instructors had woven took effect. I saw the Novices cast spells in myriad colors. My favorite was one particular Novice who created rudimentary thrusters of fire magic on his hands and rocketed up. He managed enough speed that he cleared the first set of landings entirely before his spell ran out of juice on the second level. His landing was graceful, but one of his feet landed on the Grand Abbot’s trap, and the seemingly solid rock instead turned soft and he started to sink down. It was a struggle for him to pull his leg out, but he managed to do it after a few seconds. That trap didn’t snare him. He reformed the rockets in his hands and took off again, only to be snatched out of the air by a hanging metal cable that came to life, glowing with steel gray magic.
The audience hooted and hollered as they watched the man struggle, or the countless others who ascended using various means. A few Novice air magic users created platforms of solid air to jump up on. This worked until they got to the whirling sand twister created by one of the instructors. One enterprising member of their number tried to create a shield of solid air and then leapt into the twister. Unfortunately, his shield turned into a sail and he went flying out. One of the instructors saw this and met him with a net of air magic that lowered him slowly and safely to the ground. But he had to start the climb all over again. A Novice earth mage tried to tunnel through the various platforms and then leap to the bottom of the next one. This worked for a few levels, until a section of grass came to life and held him up in the air. The fire mage – who had managed to extract himself from the steel cables – took pity on him and with a slash of fire magic severed the grass. He only fell to the level below, but he had to figure out a different approach as the grass waved menacingly at him.
All across the pyramid, the story was the same. None of the threats the Novices were overcoming were lethal. Many were static traps that if the Novices could avoid if they knew where they were. But everything was designed to waste a few seconds to a few minutes. A failure – being tossed off the pyramid – meant a reset that could cost even more time. These delays added up, and before any of them had reached the top, the Grand Abbot’s magically enhanced voice called out the halfway point. “Fifteen minutes left, Novices. Better hurry up!”
The fire magic rocket arrived at the top of pyramid seconds after the call. He took a few seconds to gesture to the crowd, which cheered his triumph loudly, before he turned his attention to the descent. I gasped and leaned forward as he just simply dove off the top under his own power. One of the instructors, thinking him an accidentally falling student, sent a net of air magic over to catch him. Astonished, I watched his flash a quick spell in a shimmering, color-shifting style that created a simple blast of magic that shredded her spell. He then formed his rocket thrusters again, but weaker in thrust this time, pulling off a landing that reminded me of NASA landers arriving on the Moon or Mars. Then it was back into a second obstacle course, where his progress was swift. No more magical traps assailed him once he was on the ground again, and he finished with plenty of time to spare.
The next to finish were the cluster of air magic users, who had supported each other throughout their trip up and down. Over the next several minutes, several more individuals managed to finish. I watched, amazed, as many more made their way carefully down the pyramid. The obstacles that had made their lives difficult before now simple things for them to avoid or overcome. With a gesture from one of the instructors, a circle of golden energy started to form around the finish line. The Grand Abbot’s voice boomed out. “The end approaches, Novices! Be within the golden circle before it finishes to pass!”
The intensity of the energy in the golden circle ramped up over the next few minutes. By this point, almost all the Novices were in the final leg of the obstacle course. A few stragglers still attempted the descent and a few others had clearly given up and were sitting on the ground or on whatever platform they were stuck on. Now that all the true strivers were off, several of the instructors gathered up those remaining on the pyramid, picking them up with tethers of air magic and bringing them back to the starting gate. It was a mad dash, and a few of the Novices tried to use magic to give themselves a final boost. For some, it was enough. But for others, the last jump or magically enhanced dash ended with them splatting like bugs on a windshield on a suddenly solid matrix of golden energy as a bell tolled throughout the Arena. One of those failures irately pounded on the wall, but it didn’t so much as ripple from the impacts.
“Witness the progress of our Novices!” The voice of the Grand Abbot boomed out. “Congratulations to all those in our winners’ circle. Good fortune in your Initiate studies! For those of you who did not make it this year, many of you will return next year to make an additional valiant attempt! We will cheer your progress!” The instructors landed and chivied the failures away from the golden circle, forcing them to make an embarrassing trudge back across the Arena floor to the gate they had entered through. The Grand Abbot meanwhile, landed and led those who had passed the test through a gate on the other side of the Arena while the crowd cheered and applauded.