The forest was a mess of dirt and leaves, existing in halves like light and dark, death and life. Shadows danced at the fringes of the treelines, given word only through perpetual twilight that cleaved the trees into mirrored sentinels.
With barely a rustle, a figure jetted through the calcified darkness. His dreadlocks, tied into two ponytails, whipped against the wind. He wore sleek black shorts stretching past his ankles, black slides, and an oversized black shirt, his silhouette ducking past gnarled branches.
Not caring to maintain full stealth, he studied the runic insignia on the bracelet, trying to burn the image of it into his mind. Occasionally, he would glance back, trying to gauge the distance between him and the creature.
Noting the creature was still a far distance away, he slowed deliberately as to lessen the distance between him and the skittering horror at his heels.
As he did that, a small ghostly wing of darkness limned by light manifested on his face and rested over his right eye.
Waiting until they were deep enough into the forest, Altha looked back and saw the creature lunge at him; he turned on his heel while simultaneously jumping 3.35 metres into the air—a calculated arc.
Midair, his wing flared, unleashing a corona of ash-grey light, temporarily stunning the creature.
With the cube in hand, heavy from being carried, Altha hurled it at the creature with all the strength he could muster, and as the momentum bled from his muscles, it was soon replaced by a shameful afterburn.
Impacting the creature's bony spiked carapace with a thunderclap, it spiderwebbed the creature's armour and cratered the ground beneath. The impact ran across the forest reverberating into the trees.
Altha landed in a crouch, the grey luminescence pooling around him like irradiated fog as trees shed their colours under its gaze, bark blanching to bone, leaves withering into monochrome leprosy.
"That should at least buy me a bit more time." he hissed.
Looking around, he saw the tree he had used as a distraction earlier, and already he was sprinting toward it—a gnarled titan half-consumed by luminescent fungi.
Behind him, the creature's eye pulsed with feral incandescence, its mandibles gnashing air, still vibrating from the cube's aftershock.
Knowing that death was on his tail, only kept at bay by a few metres of distance, Altha hurried his search, widening the distance between him and the creature by the second.
Erupting suddenly from out of nowhere, crystalline talons carved through the darkness, splintering trees as they made their way to him, shearing through the space where Altha's form had been.
Saved only by his reflexes as he jumped up gathering his thoughts midair. Landing, he found purchase on the monstrosity's stone forearm and allowed the ashen light to burst in intensity effectively blinding the creature momentarily.
With little wasted effort Altha scaled its jagged anatomy in two fluid strides.
Climbing up to its shoulder, he swung behind its head hanging onto it by its rough head of colourful crystal spikes.
The rune on the bracelet glowed a noticeable crimson light, and looking along the trees, he saw the crablike creature approaching.
Recalling a mental image of the insignia on his bracelet, he reinforced his hand with some invisible force then with a slash of his hand, he branded the creature's nape, the insignia a mirror to the bracelet's.
The creature roared as Altha vaulted away, jumping into the air and landing on a sturdy trunk of a tree with feline grace. Letting the wing spirit itself away like a fleeting fog he looked into the undergrowth.
The golem-like creature lumbered around in confusion and anger, not sure what had just happened as it looked for the squishy human who dared to climb onto its shoulders and carve stone from it.
Focusing his Psyche Energy into the rune, the insignia gleamed a grey radiance.
The forest held its breath capitulating to the whims of the enraged figure of quarts and shale.
Cutting through the oppressive silence, Altha thought to himself, "Step 1: Complete," feeling his muscles throb in dull resignation, he was reminded of his time limit; he could not keep this up for much longer.
The woods bustled with whispered threats, hiding just beyond the borders of his vision.
"Now for step 2, then I can be done with all this nonsense and go to sleep; I call that step 3. My arms are gonna be sore tonight I just know it."
He sighed to himself, "Come on you overgrown crustacean, show yourself." He muttered, "Survival is a bitter pill to swallow, but one we are forced to stomach. Let's make this tragic."
In the brush and wild vegetation appeared the silhouette of a floating saucer-like body with three jagged tentacles barbed and lengthy. A singular slit eye burned at the centre of the mass and blazed an eerie orange colour, an average furnace of molten amber.
The alien creature's eye locked onto the golem, which creaked as it turned, its joints grinding like tectonic plates.
But before the golem pivoted to face it, the creature pounced, coiling its tentacles around the lumbering giant's stoney body and started to constrict its form, fracturing quarts into glittering shrapnel.
Then, from its underside, it tried to pierce the golem with its cylindrical tongue of grotesque pink flesh but failed to comprehend in time that this was no regular organic being.
The golem cracked into its already damaged carapace with its fist causing the alien creature's grip to weaken, then peeled the creature off with a crystalline talon.
And unleashing the full menace of its wrath, the golem slammed the creature onto the ground repeatedly, slowly chipping away at its outer layers and spraying clods of dirt and body matter, eventually revealing the tender flesh beneath its carapace.
The forest swallowed the creature's telepathic shrieks, its cries dissolving into the static hum of the woods. Looking up, the creature saw Altha standing upon a limb of oak with a frown flat across his features, his expression seemingly pained.
No one could hear the creature's psychic screams, or so it thought; the look on Altha's face, however, made the creature think otherwise as it reached out in a weak attempt to reach him with its tentacles.
Knowing the creature was in pain and unsure of when the golem would finish it off Altha's weapon materialized in a sear of indigo light—a hybrid of spear and sword, its edge humming with condensed twilight. He hesitated, the weapon's hilt cold against his palm.
Offording the creature a bow he looked it in the eye, his face betraying his troubled nature.
Reluctantly, he aimed his weapon and syphoned energy into it, causing it to glow a pale grey light. Throwing the hybrid weapon at the creature it whistled through the air and plunged straight into the crab's brain, instantly extinguishing its eye like a snuffed candle.
Taking in a deep breath Altha turned away as his weapon disappeared in a flash of indigo light, leaving the crablike creature lifeless in its wake. Ready to leave, Altha dropped down from the tree and stealthily moved away from the area, fearing all the commotion may have alerted unwanted guests.
Dashing across the forest, he went back to collect the cube of an indeterminable colour, its weight as light as ever and headed away from the lake in the direction of the cabin, following the path back.
A few seconds later he'd just left the tree line into a clearing as the winds picked up their melody. There, on the porch of the cabin, Sumi, Cassilyth, Solace, Isolde, Seth, and Cecily waited for him with multiple holographic screens that projected out from a familiar coloured cube.
The screens were of cerulean and mercury. Seeing him approach, Cassilyth smirked and turned to Sumi. Sumi smiled back at her.
Standing up Solace jokingly asked:
"What took you so long?"
Altha trudged toward the cabin, the cube cradled in his hands, slumped. Close enough to the porch, he tossed the cube in front of him, and it hit the ground with a loud thud.
"Next time," Altha muttered, collapsing onto the floor "You fight the seafood." His voice was nearly a dry rasp, betraying weariness.
Seth leaned against the porch railing with the casual grace of a predator at rest and let out a low chuckle. "Good job, kid. You just slayed a Tier 4 Inceptious Existence. Not bad for someone who doesn't know what a Somniate Trial is."
Cecily stepped forward, her movements as fluid as water over stone. "Indeed," She said, her voice tinged with praise and curiosity." that's a very impressive feat of strength for one not yet possessed to the benefits of the Spire." She said as she extended a hand to him, she then snapped her fingers, and the cube dissolved into threads of crimson light that spiralled into nothingness.
"Congratulations to you, Altha. You have successfully completed your examinary trial and surpassed even my expectations of you. Tomorrow, we will be beginning your training," Cecily said, her voice softening.
The group gathered around him, their congratulations a cacophony of warmth and camaraderie. Seth ruffled Altha's hair with a grin, while Solace slung an arm around his shoulders in a mock wrestling hold. "Welcome to the madness," Solace said, his voice tinged with both humour and pride.
As the first drops of rain began to fall, they retreated into the cabin, the air inside thick with the scent of herbs and woodsmoke. Altha was shown to his room—a shared space with Seth and Solace, its walls lined with maps and strange artefacts. He collapsed onto his bed, the fatigue of the day pressing him into the mattress like a leaden blanket.
Meanwhile, the cabin buzzed with activity. Solace and Cassilyth worked in tandem in the kitchen, their banter punctuated by the rhythmic chopping of vegetables. Sumi hovered nearby, her holographic screens flickering as she cross-referenced some arcane recipe. Isolde sat by the fireplace, her quill scratching furiously across the pages of her tome, the ink glinting like liquid shadow in the firelight.
However, Cecily and Seth were nowhere to be seen.
In a secluded study, Seth leaned against his desk, his arms crossed as he regarded Cecily. "Well, as you requested, we've trialled him. And he's proven he's no mere Outer-Existial. But you already knew that, didn't you?"
Cecily sat in a high-backed chair, her fingers steepled in thought. "He has no Ether. Not a single drop of Cogni. It's as if the multiverse itself refuses to acknowledge him. And yet…" She trailed off, her gaze distant. "He's 'real'. Flesh, bone, and defiance. How is that possible?"
Unable to answer, Seth turned to look at a globe of stars shimmering with the light of distant celestial bodies.
"No idea... If anyone knew or could find out it would be you. For now, we prepare him as best we can. And hope he survives the Somniate Trial. Like you said, imprisoning him without cause would be… counterproductive." Seth stated.
Cecily sighed, her eyes drifting to an hourglass on the table. The sand within trickled steadily, each grain a stolen moment. "The things I do for the pursuit of knowledge," she murmured, her voice tinged with both resignation and resolve.
Seth smirked, though his eyes remained serious. "Knowledge, power, chaos—it's all the same in the end. Just don't forget why we're doing this."
Cecily's lips curved into a faint smile. "Oh, I haven't forgotten. But sometimes, I wonder if the multiverse is playing a game we don't yet understand."
As the hourglass emptied, the two fell into a contemplative silence, the weight of their responsibilities pressing down like the gathering storm outside.