“I’m really glad the spell doesn’t require me to do this part by myself,” Cayden said from the sidelines, somewhat abashed.

“Oh?” Desdaemona asked, voice full of amusement as she filled in the last minor details of the complicated magical diagram that the group had spent the last three hours painstakingly drawing and then redrawing onto the magically smooth floor of the ritual chamber. “You don’t think you could have managed this?”

“He couldn’t even manage to draw a circle right.” Celia giggled before Cayden could make any sort of reply. “I have some pictures I’ll show you later. It was the saddest thing you’ve ever seen.”

Cayden’s skin glowed a healthy crimson as Silver, by far the most experienced ritual mage of the group, inspected the intricate diagram. She stopped only twice, smudging out white chalk with a wet sponge then recreating the now missing symbol. After three methodical passes, the dark-haired girl nodded, pleased with what she saw. “This should do.”

“What happens if I get it wrong?” Cayden asked.

“Then you’ll owe me even more zeni for the extra components.” Silver replied, matter of factly. As the blush drained from his face, replaced by horror, she patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. The hard part is already done. It’s normal skill use, so it’ll take over your movements and handle the casting for you.”

“And after that is done?”

“No idea. Sometimes rituals have extra steps you have to handle manually, sometimes not. You’ll have to play it by ear.”

“You sure know how to reassure. Does everyone have to leave?”

Silver examined the ritual circle one last time to be certain, then shook her head. “No, but we should probably all stand back. Something this can be pretty flashy and has some interesting atmospherics. Wouldn’t want to get struck by lightning coming off it.”

“Lightning?” Cayden frowned.

The rest of the group were already taking Silver at her word retreating into two cliques at opposite ends of the room, Michael and Asch on one side, Celia, Silver, Des, and Shifty on the other.

“She sure knows how to be reassuring,” Cayden grumbled. “Well, no time like the present. Skill Use: Ritual Magic (Runemagi).” Nothing happened and for just a heartbeat Cayden wondered if there was some fatal flaw in his whole plan.

“You have to state the spell Cayden.” Silver reminded him.

“Oh. Yeah. Right.” He slapped his forehead, rolled his shoulders, and started again. “Skill Use: Ritual Magic. Summon the Throne of Tabbris.”

Again, nothing.

“For crying out… Skill Use: Ritual Magic. How to Summon the Throne of Tabbris in six easy steps.”

The sensation that followed was exquisite.

Normally the use of a skill had a certain wrongness to it. As though another creature had inhabited your body, and was puppeting it through the motions. This was so much different, even as it was the same. It felt as though pure and unmitigated power had filled him from head to toe, and that power was the one putting his body through the paces.

He had no control over his actions, but he still had all his senses. He felt his arms rise, moving through complex motions. He heard his mouth uttering long magical incantations. Familiar magical incantations.

“Obedie velduah, alcat.” Yeah, that was a voice clip for spellcasting from Neverwinter Nights. “Insertus Poltrum Imperium.” Latin, but also Baldur’s Gate II. “Anthekwer thun roth.” Oh, Pillars of Eternity, an oldie but a goodie.

His body worked through the motions. Trapped inside all Cayden could do was question whether the Developer was a huge nerd for including that little easter egg, or if he was the bigger nerd for understanding it.

Probably the latter.

Despite Silver’s warning, the spellcasting itself was relatively muted. Yes, the magical circle glowed with unnatural light, yes there were slight bursts of atmospheric pressure as Cayden finished each incantation but compared to what he had expected, the whole event seemed rather tame.

That was, until he finished.

The moment the last syllable fell from his lips, Cayden was struck by a wave of force and sound that threw him to the ground. Torches around the room were extinguished by the overpressure, leaving the room shrouded in darkness until Silver incanted a simple spell to provide them with a ball of metallic blue light that floated toward the center of the chamber.

The intricately prepared circle was gone, replaced by what could best be described as a circular void in the floor of roughly the same size. It greedily drank in the light from Silver’s spell, causing it to dim slightly as the magic empowering it was swallowed up by that inky darkness.

“So… did it work?” Michael inquired after a moment's hesitation.

Cayden frowned as he struggled back to his feet. “I think so. Kind of looks like a portal, doesn’t it?”

Without warning an arm erupted from the void. Much too large to be human, it thrashed briefly in the air, searching for some sort of purchase, something to grab onto with its four taloned hands. When it at last found the edge of the circle, the group watched in horror as muscles strained, lifting the monstrosity out of the opening, bit by bit.

The thing was humanoid, but vastly out of proportion. Its arms were too long, torso too wide to even fit through the portal without turning sideways and squeezing its way through. Its features were hard to make out beneath the oily, tar-like substance of the portal that slathered and dripped from its frame. Even so, Cayden could distinctly see two gleaming yellow eyes, wide pointy ears, and a jagged toothy maw.

With some effort the creature pulled itself halfway free of the portal, its lower body still concealed within. Seemingly satisfied with how far it had come, the thing… wiggled, getting itself comfortable, before it looked to Cayden who had long since prepared his sword and shield, ready to fight.

“Oh no, we have no need of that.” The creature said in a distinctly clipped British accent. One that was strangely familiar.

Cayden hesitated, eyeing the creature warily as the portal ‘tar’ sloughed off its body and began to evaporate at a frightening speed. But what it revealed equally more and less sense. For instance, why was the lizard-like nightmare wearing a suit jacket and a blue turtleneck?

“Is that…?” Desdaemona asked from the far end of the chamber. “I mean, it couldn’t be.”

“What, you think the Developer cares about copyright infringement?” Shifty countered, his voice just as incredulous.

The green and yellow scaled creature reached down into the pit, producing a pair of reading glasses. It shook them twice to clean off the residue, slid them on, and said with a dramatic flourish. “Oh it is good to be back in the city so nice, they named it twice.” It tilted its head to the side. “So surprised. What, were you all expecting the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man? Because let me tell you, he is really more of a one-hit-wonder.”

“Okay, I am clearly not in on the joke.” Silver said with substantial annoyance. “What is that thing?”

“Well I don’t very much like being called a thing for starters.” It chuckled. “I believe the technical term is Gremlin, but I find that nearly as offensive all things considered given the historical context of that particular term.”

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“How about we just call you Mr. Glasses?” Cayden asked.

That drew a sharp laugh and a nod of approval from the creature. “Ah, now I see you are a man of culture Mr….” The gremlin dug into the portal once more, returning with a clipboard and a pen. “Cayden Caros. Now honestly how is that even a real name? It sounds like something Stan Lee might have made up.”

“I think that was the intention. My mom was a big fan around the time I was born.”

“Oh my. Well, you learn something new every single day.” Mr. Glasses scrawled something on the clipboard, his arm moving through the motion the way a puppet might mime the action of writing something down. “Alright, we should probably get down to business before I give some of your friends here a heart attack. First, I do believe you’ve earned this.”

With a flick of its finger, Cayden’s glasses chimed with a quest completed notification:

Quest Complete: Leaning to Run

Reward: 35,000 XP.

“And you’ll be needing this too.”

Special Quest

Learning to Sing

Requirements: Complete the trials of the Throne of Tabbris

Reward: 82,000 XP.

Level Up!

You have (5) Undistributed Stat Points

“There. Now that we’ve gotten the boring bookkeeping out of the way, I should properly introduce myself. I am the administrator for this final set of trials. My job is to ensure that you die horribly.” As Cayden reached for his sword, Mr. Glasses looked down at his clipboard and made a face. “Sorry, my mistake. My job is to ensure that you don’t die horribly. Easy mistake to make, I’m sure you understand.”

“Better to make it here than later,” Cayden replied.

“Quite right. Quite right.” The big gremlin chuckled. “I’m to ensure that you don’t die horribly unless you deserve it.”

“How does anyone deserve that?” Celia asked.

“Well, they start by interrupting a conversation.” It said, pointedly. “But that was a good question, so I’ll let it pass. These trials aren’t like your typical dungeon. They’re far more challenging in an esoteric sense, custom-tailored to the individual, their skills, equipment, and so forth. Less of a ‘how hard can I hit it’ and more ‘do I know the right way to hit it’. If you catch my drift. But because of the more, shall we say, unusual nature of the challenges you’ll face, you are being given a safety net.”

The gremlin made a checkmark on its clipboard, and a small flash of light briefly forced Cayden to shield his eyes. When it dimmed, a small amulet was rotating in the air in front of him.

“That contains your ‘get out of jail free card’, as well as your hint button. The first allows you to leave the trials safely at any time. You will obviously fail, your unique class will be stripped from you and you’ll be refunded the levels, mastery points, etc. On the other hand, you won’t die. So there is that.”

Cayden touched the amulet and the magic that held it in the air dissipated, dropping it into his hands. An old-timey heart-shaped locket, he opened the front to reveal a folded piece of orange cardstock emblazoned with the jail-striped monopoly man getting kicked in the ass. Beneath it, was a bright red button that screamed ‘push me.’

“The hint button…” The gremlin continued, clearly irked that he’d lost Cayden’s direct attention. “is what it sounds like. Push it at any time during the trial and I can give you a hint about how to not die in your current situation. There is a special reward if you get through the trials without using any hints, but I absolutely do not recommend.”

“Any chance you could give me an early hint? Or a spoiler?” Cayden asked.

“That would rather defeat the point of the hint button.” Mr. Glasses replied with a wide smile that suggested it was a question he’d heard before. “I will tell you that every set of trials is unique, so asking anyone outside for tips will not be helpful.”

That was surprising. “So someone else has completed a set of these trials in the past?”

“One, yes. Fairly early on, after the opening of the tower. Since then, none. Which I must say is fairly surprising. The starting points are well hidden, but not that well-hidden.”

“Could you give us hints on where to find one?” Silver asked, clearly intrigued.

“Absolutely not.” Mr. Glasses shook his head vigorously, its rubbery ears bouncing comically with the movements. “But if your friend succeeds, one of the rewards is the ability to pass on a Grand Quest to anyone of his choosing. That should lead to another of the unique skills, classes, and your own set of trials.”

Everyone’s eyes grew wide at that, but none more so than Silver. To come away with a unique skill of her own, with the ability to impart the same thing to others. It was the break she had been waiting ages for.

“But enough about that. We have paperwork to do.”

The gremlin fished into the void and drew out five stacks on papers, each at least a full foot in height. The first it handed to Cayden, the next four it set neatly on the floor just outside the range of the portal.

“These are the updated Terms and Conditions that will be in place for the duration of your trial.” He explained. “I’ll need you and each of your party members to sign off at the end of these, and then I’ll have to get a witness to notarize them. For legal reasons, you understand.”

Cayden did not understand what legal system could possibly be involved, but he went with it. “Do I need to bring others in with me? Or can I go it alone?”

“You’ll need a party of five for this particular trial.” Mr. Glasses said apologetically. “And they-“ it pointed to Silver and Desdaemona. “-are unfortunately ineligible.”

“Due to our level?”

“Correct. The difficulty of the trial is level scaled to the primary participant. No one stronger than him is allowed to enter, even weakened as you are by your sickness.”

Silver’s fury was palpable as she turned to Cayden. “You will record every second of what-“

“No, no he won’t.” The gremlin interrupted. “Recording devices of any kind are forbidden during the updated terms of service. This includes yak baks, xerox machines, old flashbulb cameras, sketch pads, and sculptures. Among other, more conventional means.”

“I’m guessing that includes streaming devices too.” Cayden inquired.

“You know, they aren’t included in the list, so you might have been able to fudge the rules if not for the sixty-ninth paragraph of Clause four hundred and twenty, subsection B.”

Cayden raised an eyebrow, flipping clumsily through the stack for several seconds until he found the appropriate paragraph which read:

LOL. No.

“I feel that probably shouldn’t be legally binding,” Cayden complained.

“Take it up with our lawyers.” Mr. Glasses retorted quite happily. “Regardless, your internet access is going to be disabled for the duration of the trial to prevent outside help or... hmm. It appears someone has already beat me to that front. Interesting. Regardless, the trials are a test of your knowledge and skill, not who you know or how quickly you can use DuckDuckGo.

“Who the hell uses DuckDuckGo?” Shifty asked from the sidelines.

“This is going to take hours to read through,” Celia complained as she began to flip through her updated terms and conditions.

“Maybe a little less.” Michael replied, “The back third or so just says ‘all work and no play make Homer something something.”

“Go crazy?” Silver asked.

Cayden chuckled despite himself. “Don’t mind if I do.” He looked to the Gremlin. “Do we really have to read through all of this?”

“I don’t know. Do you?”

“Really?” Cayden asked dryly.

The creature looked away from him for a moment, then smiled somewhat sheepishly and shrugged. “Probably not, we’ve already covered most of the important changes.”

“Most?” Cayden pressed him.

“If you stabilize in the trial you are ejected here instead of to the nearest temple. You suffer no resurrection sickness but can’t re-enter the trial. If it is a companion you may or may not automatically fail, depending on what challenges remain. If it is you personally, then you fail.” It tapped a long, sharp nail to its chin in thought, before finally adding. “Oh, and your time limit is four hours, starting when you completed the summoning ritual.”

Cayden gave him an incredulous look. “And what page is that on?”

“Hmm. I believe it is in the late part of the thousands. Mixed in with all of the ‘all work and no play’ bits.”

“How long?” Cayden asked, looking back to Celia.

“Three hours and fifty-two minutes.” She replied instantly. One of the perks of being a chronomancer was a perfect recollection of the passage of time.

Cayden nodded. Celia and Michael were already signing off on their copies of the new Terms and Conditions, but Shifty and Asch had yet to take up their copies. “If either of you wants out we can pull someone in to replace you, but you have to decide now.”

“I’m in. Just don’t get us killed.” Asch said.

“Shifty?” Cayden asked. The older man was hesitating, his gaze briefly unwilling to meet Cayden’s.

“I get that this is important. We probably won’t make Silver’s death timer if we don’t do something to shake up the narrative. But only one person has succeeded.” His eyes hardened, foot-tapping as he struggled internally.

“My appetite for risk is a lot higher than yours. Which isn’t always a good thing.” Before Shifty could say anything else, Cayden produced the get out of jail free card and handed it to Shifty. “So you make the call.”

Shifty met his eyes, holding steady for several seconds. When Cayden opened his mouth to say more, he was silenced by an enveloping, back-slapping hug from Shifty. “We got this.” He said, before rolling his neck and repeating himself with more volume and hype. “We’ve got this!”

“Well, he certainly seems to think you’ve got this.” Mr. Glasses said with delight. It took the paper stacks back from them one at a time, casually discarding them back into the pit like so much garbage. “That makes five. Bon Voyage my human friends. Don’t forget to write.”

Without warning, shimmering blue portals opened beneath each participant’s feet, dropping them down into darkness.