“There is a time to run, and there is a time to draw blood. You’ll learn to recognise which is one is which in time.” - quote attributed to Seram Miche, aka Cedarwood, senior Proxy and Defender of Salt Lake City.

The first step was quick and hurried, the second less so. By the time they reached the platform, they were almost calm. It had been too easy. For a moment they stood on the platform, savouring their victory.

Above them, through the crevice in the interior, sulphuric rays of light penetrated, and on occasion the tentacle stirred.

That orange light fell on the caskets, of which there were ten. The lids were ornamented; a seven-pronged star, a snake with wings and an elephant’s tusk, among others.

The group stared at the rectangles.

“Dibs,” Berenice called.

Isla crowed.”Not if I’m first.”

The lids came off easily and ten Chassis shone in the half-light.

One of those Chassis Martin had seen in Sviratham’s introduction.

Another consisted of two sets of robes, a demirobe and one atop it, both of which were differing shades of red. Its cowl was black and Berenice was making appreciative noises about it.

Isla stared at a Chassis with a horned mask, one with long snow-colored silk attached as hair. The horns bulged up and back in the manner of a ram.

Berenice had moved up to a Chassis in dark green, with sword and board, the heraldry of the shield being that of a white apple on green.

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“They’re beautiful,” Isla said, stroking the horns of the Chassis.

“And quite useful. With these we would be able to fight the Host,” Berenice echoed.

“How do we know which one to pick?” His question wasn’t unfounded; some Chassis were superior to others.

Martin thought back to the conversation he had with Chiyo. He wished he had asked more about the selection processes for Proxies.

“I think we pick one, and that would finalise the test? The actual bonding process is probably something our instructor deals with,” suggested Berenice.

CLINK.

They all glanced up. An eye stared through the crevice. A tentacle tried to force its way through - and Martin wasn’t the only one whose sharp inhalation could be heard - bunching, squiggling, withdrawing only when it became apparent that it was impossible.

The multi-iris eye closed. The Regial disappeared from view.

“Let’s make a run for-“

-and the Regial slammed its body against the Y-shaped opening. Huge cracks, spiderweb fractals formed along the entire interior.

It broke the spell.

“RUN!”

Berenice leaped, Isla’s arm neatly sidelining her before she could get anywhere.

“Wait,” Isla said, calm in that manner of someone who was thinking. Martin just stared at the Regial. He looked down at the hair of his arm, thick and bushy, rising.

Run? Run!? They could run, but that…thing would crack the opening and swat them into oblivion. One of its tentacles went down in the mist on the other side, causing him revise his estimate of its length.

The Regial would reach out, like a child swatting a fly, and that would be the end of it.

“…fight it,” Isla recanted.

Martin replayed her words. Don the Chassis and fight the Regial? It…he stared at the ten Chassis, made from the corpses of the Host. A splinter of stone, as big as he was tall, flew past them.

“How?”

“Well, we wear them-“

“No, I mean how do we activate them?”

There was a flash of light, and Berenice stood, a knight in green and white. For a moment she just stood, before a sonorous voice erupted from the visired helmet. “Need,” she said with awe,”the first generation of Proxies claimed that their Chassis answered to their needs.”

Martin and Isla fell to their knees, their eardrums ruptured by the sound as the inner mountain was pulled apart with force beyond human imagination.

The Regial hovered in profile before them, too large to get through in truth, but now with three barbed tentacles. Three for three.

Berenice tensed, her body crouched and vaulted up!

And down, into the mist.

Yes, Martin thought, she has a plan. For ten long heartbeats he waited. Nothing. The Regial shook, its beak emitting a sound that made Martin see spots.

The world blurred, and not just with pain. Berenice had left them, hadn’t she? He laughed, albeit not loudly. He had suspected an attack, some harassment, but not be left just as they were about to fail the Examination.

Raja Sviratham’s words came back to him.Try not to die. Well, Martin had tried, and he had failed.

The tentacle rose, the tentacle fell.

He closed his eyes.