*Date: 33,480 Second Quarter — Chalice Theocracy*
The second exit opened with a grinding sound of stone on stone. Aris walked through, Sliver's featherfall-enchanted body floating beside him on her ice platform like a ghost on a frozen bier. He kept glancing over his shoulders, expecting traps or creatures to leap from the shadows. Five minutes passed. Nothing attacked.
The silence was worse than combat. Alone with a near-death classmate, Aris felt tears burning behind his eyes. He blinked them away furiously. Now was not the time.
When the third trial room came into view, he stopped and hit his head twice with his palm. "Get it together, Aris. If you win this, you get a clue for the other relic. For Lyra."
He entered the chamber and froze.
The ring wasn't a simple circular platform this time. Boxes and walls jutted from the floor, creating a three-dimensional maze. Like fighting in back alleys of a cramped city.
"Cover to hide and catch my breath," he muttered. "But in a 3v1, I'll never get those free seconds."
Three figures waited in the shadows. When they saw Aris enter, they walked forward into the dim light.
Kaelan's copy. The rank 1 templar, brutal and relentless. His armor gleamed even in the half-light, and his sword looked sharp enough to split stone.
Sliver's copy. Tier 3 spells, perfect casting form. She looked exactly like the unconscious woman floating behind him, except her eyes were empty and calculating.
And Huroshi's copy. The rank 3 halfling rogue-assassin. Faster than Orric, deadlier than shadows. Her dual daggers caught the light as she twirled them with practiced ease.
Aris sighed and downed every remaining potion. The resistance potion first, coating his insides with warmth. Then the last blood potion, feeling the surge of power that made his vision sharpen and his muscles sing. He cast Minor Shield on the buckler and poured his last reflect potion over its surface. The metal shimmered with defensive magic.
He had two unstable potions left. Against these three, they might not be enough.
"Ready?" all three copies asked in unison.
Aris didn't answer. He pulled one unstable potion from his belt, gauged the distance, and hurled it at the group.
The three scattered instantly, but Aris had aimed for the ground between them. He cast Radiant Thread toward Huroshi, the golden cord seeking to drain her energy. The explosion ripped through the stone floor, sending shrapnel and concussive force in all directions. Kaelan's copy stumbled. Sliver's copy raised a hasty shield that cracked under the blast.
Huroshi darted left, using one of the wall structures for cover, moving so fast she was nearly a blur.
"There!" Aris spotted her shadow flickering around the corner. He sprinted toward that section of the arena, staff raised. If he could isolate one opponent and take them out fast, the odds improved dramatically.
Huroshi emerged from behind the wall, dual daggers flashing. She was faster than the Orric-copy, impossibly quick. Aris barely got his shield up before she was on him, blades seeking the gaps in his defense.
He gave ground, backpedaling toward the corner. She followed, thinking she had him trapped.
"Now!" Aris dropped low, dodging a high slash, and released Radiant Convergence's missiles point-blank. The sphere of light erupted between them, blinding and burning. Huroshi recoiled, one hand covering her face.
Aris began chanting immediately, hands weaving the complex tier 3 pattern. "Holy Smite!"
Golden lightning crashed down from above, hammering into the halfling's small frame. She convulsed, tried to dodge, but the spell tracked her movement. The holy energy seared through her, and she collapsed, dissolving into particles.
Aris had no time to celebrate. He bent and snatched one of her daggers before it faded, feeling the perfect balance of the assassin's blade. He pocketed it quickly. He had an idea for later.
A roar echoed through the chamber. Kaelan's copy charged from the left, shield raised, sword wreathed in holy fire. Behind him, Sliver's copy began casting, violet lightning crackling between her hands.
Aris ran. He ducked behind one of the walls, using the terrain. A fireball exploded where he'd just stood, superheating the stone. He could feel the heat through his boots. They weren't giving him any chance to charge Holy Smite.
He came around the corner fast and nearly ran straight into Kaelan. The templar's sword swung in a devastating arc. Aris raised the buckler, and the reflect potion activated, sending some of the force back. Kaelan staggered but recovered instantly, years of training evident in every movement.
They exchanged blows. Staff against sword. Aris had the reach advantage, but Kaelan had technique that made him nearly impossible to hit cleanly. Every time Aris thought he had an opening, the shield came up or Kaelan sidestepped with perfect timing.
Lightning screamed overhead. Sliver's copy had repositioned, firing bolt after bolt. Aris twisted, using Kaelan's larger frame as partial cover, but one bolt caught his shoulder. Pain exploded through his arm. The scent of burned flesh filled his nostrils.
He couldn't win like this. Two on one, with Sliver supporting from range, would wear him down until he made a fatal mistake.
Aris feinted left, then rolled right, coming up near another wall section. He sprinted, putting distance between himself and Kaelan, trying to break line of sight with copy Sliver.
But copy Sliver was too smart. She'd moved to higher ground, standing on one of the raised platform sections. From there, she had clear sight lines across most of the arena.
"Think, think!" Aris's mind raced. Kaelan was closing in again, methodical and unstoppable. Sliver prepared another tier 3 spell. He could see the power gathering, feel the ozone tang in the air.
He threw his second unstable potion, not at them, but at the wall section to his right. The explosion brought the structure down, creating a cloud of dust and rubble. Visibility dropped to nearly zero.
Aris immediately cast Radiant Convergence again and began moving through the dust cloud, firing light missiles in random directions to confuse them.
A shape loomed in the dust. Kaelan, searching. Aris came in low, sweeping the staff at the templar's legs. Kaelan jumped, but Aris had expected that. He followed up with a thrust to the midsection. The staff connected with a satisfying thud. Kaelan's breath whooshed out.
But the templar recovered fast, shield-bashing Aris backward. They grappled briefly, too close for effective strikes. Aris could see the copy's eyes. Empty, programmed, relentless.
Thunder cracked overhead. The dust was settling. Sliver had clear line of sight again and was casting something big. Tier 3. The spell that had nearly killed him in their duel.
Aris shoved away from Kaelan and ran toward the edge of the arena, toward a section with a small raised platform. If he could get elevation, maybe force Sliver to split her attention.
His foot hit a loose stone.
He pitched forward, tumbling off the edge of the platform into a small pit he hadn't noticed in the chaos. Two meters deep, stone walls on three sides.
"No!" He was trapped. Kaelan appeared at the edge above, sword raised for an executioner's strike.
Then he heard a voice. Weak, pained, but real.
"Get... away from him!"
Sliver's real voice.
An ice wall erupted from the ground between Aris and Kaelan, the frozen barrier so sudden the templar's sword bounced off harmlessly. Kaelan stumbled backward in surprise.
Aris looked to the side of the arena where he'd left the real Sliver on her ice platform. Her eyes were open, barely, and her hand was raised, shaking with effort. Blood still stained her robes, and she looked half-dead, but her staff glowed with power.
"Holy... Smite!" she screamed, voice breaking.
Golden lightning hammered down on Kaelan's copy from above. The templar tried to raise his shield, but the spell was too powerful, cast with too much raw emotion. The holy energy consumed him, and he dissolved into light.
Sliver's hand dropped. Her eyes rolled back. She collapsed again.
"Sliver!" Aris scrambled out of the pit, but Sliver's copy was already moving, her expression twisted with something that might have been anger. How dare the real version interfere?
The copy raised both hands, channeling every ounce of power into one massive attack. Purple-black lightning swirled above her, growing larger, larger. A tier 3 spell amplified beyond limits.
Aris pulled Huroshi's dagger from his pocket. He remembered the temporary echo he'd captured from the second dungeon. Spider's Venomous Fang. He'd never used it, never understood how, but now in desperation, he pushed resonance into the blade and whispered, "Spider's Venomous Fang."
The dagger began to glow with sickly purple light. He could feel the venom coating it, feel the echo of the dungeon boss's attack pattern flowing through his arm.
Sliver's copy released her spell. The massive lightning bolt screamed toward Aris.
He threw the dagger with everything he had.
The blade spun through the air, trailing purple light. It struck Sliver's copy in the chest just as the lightning launched. The venom flared, disrupting her casting at the critical moment.
The tier 3 spell collapsed inward, backfiring. Lightning consumed the copy from within, her own power turned against her. She had time for one surprised expression before dissolving into particles.
Silence fell over the arena.
Light-filled etchings blazed across every wall. "Trial Room 3 Complete. Dungeon Cleared. Exit Available."
Aris stood in the center of the ruined arena, breathing hard, body screaming with pain. Burns, cuts, bruises. He'd count them later. If there was a later.
He stumbled toward where Sliver had fallen again, hoping desperately that her brief moment of consciousness hadn't cost her life.
She was still breathing. Barely.
"You saved me," Aris whispered. "Why?"
She didn't answer. Couldn't answer.
A door appeared in the far wall. The exit.
But then Aris heard it again. That whisper. That call.
"Not that way... this way..."
He turned. A section of the wall that shouldn't open was opening. A hidden passage, barely visible in the shadows. Blue light emanated from within. Cold, technological, wrong.
The voice was clearer now. Familiar in a way that made his skin crawl. "This way, Aris. I promised you a gift. Come and claim it."
Aris looked at the normal exit. At Sliver's unconscious form. At the secret passage.
"I'll come back for you," he promised her sleeping face. "I swear it."
Whatever waited in that blue light, he had to know.
Aris walked into the hidden tunnel, and the wall sealed shut behind him with a sound like fate clicking into place.