Only seven groups had managed to breach the centremost region of the city before the blood root vine had been killed. One was made up of people with flight powers. Such abilities were mana intensive at iron-rank, requiring them to chug mana potions as quickly as they could without poisoning themselves and stopping to rest atop every building not reduced to rubble by the plants.

Another was made up of adventurers from a jungle kingdom who had managed to find their entire original team. They had come up as adventurers fighting plant monsters and decided to bet on their abilities and experience to get them through. It was even worse than they expected; a seemingly endless, unrelenting slog until they finally reached ground not bursting with tentacle vines. They were hurt and exhausted, their willpower and supplies both spent. It was a near thing, but their experience, teamwork and mutual trust had seen them through.

Of the five remaining groups to get past the plants, all had found methods to do so when searching buildings around the perimeter of the zone. For some, this was an active search. Having concluded that the plants were a part of the test, they reasoned that the means to pass it had to be somewhere. For others it was serendipity, stumbling onto a way past the plants while searching for treasure.

Only two of the groups had come through in the original teams they had before entering the astral space. Separated at the start of the trial, like everyone else, they had found each other in one of the camps. One of these teams included Padma, Farrah’s former mentee. Filled with determination after finding one another, they had no illusions of fighting their way through and looked for another path. Their intensive searching finally turned up an abandoned alchemy workshop, containing bottles of a liquid that repelled the plants.

However they arrived, each group was elated to have made it past the aggressive plants. Their efforts were difficult and costly but they knew that same difficulty made each team who struggled through more likely to be the ones who snatched the prize. It was largely to their dismay, then, that other teams started reaching the middle en masse, mostly in waves from the three camps. It quickly became evident that one of the camps had found a way to kill off the plants entirely.

Compared to the rest of the city the adventurers had been making their way through, the true centre of the city was much more intact. The buildings were still empty, time and the wet air corroding away anything not magically sealed. It was also a relatively small area, allowing separated team members to reconnect as the three camps worth of adventurers swarmed in.

All the adventurers ended up in what Jason’s map marked as the very centre of the city. There was a vast open space, like a city square, with a circular tower in the middle. This was the one building anyone had seen in the city with no signs of damage whatsoever and was both wide and tall. Every adventurer who attempted to get close to the tower encountered a disorienting magical field which sent them staggering back. This was true approaching from above, one flier getting injured as the field tossed them away through the air. The invigilator, Shade, finally appeared to announce that the tower would open on the final day of the trials, several days hence.

Previous conflicts were largely put aside as the adventurers arrived in the square. People found their original teams, even as they celebrated new bonds, forged in the fires of shared adversity. Not every reunion was happy, as someone started organising the counting of the fallen. Those who had collected remains returned them to their teams, where possible. Some teams had fallen entirely, while others lacked the resources to carry the caskets of their dead.

Others weren’t dead but gone, having used their escape medallions to preserve their lives at the cost of further participation in the trials. Shade appeared to inform teams which of their members had escaped to safety. While many of the adventurers were able to reconstitute their teams, others were once again looking for new companions in the face of their originals teams being absent or dead. Some, left alone, used their escape medallions to leave the astral space behind.

Humphrey’s team staggered into the city, ragged from their narrow escape. If it wasn’t for Humphrey hacking through the plants like a maniacal, magically-empowered lumberjack, they wouldn’t have survived to see their reprieve as the plant monster died. Heading into the city, afterward, they had collected up the bodies of two separate groups that had died trying the same crossing.

The group, aside from Humphrey, were four of a team of six, having the luck to mostly arrive in the city together. They thanked Humphrey, sober in the knowledge that without him they would have been amongst the fallen. Lowell had lost much of his arrogance on their trek through the city. Humphrey still didn’t like him, but they shared the respect of dangers weathered together. The group set out to find their remaining team members in the growing crowd as Humphrey went to find Jason and the others.

Clive, Valdis and the rest of their temporary team arrived in a far better state than Humphrey. After the dangers of the tower, Clive had won the rest of the team over against Valdis’ proposal to fight their way through. Clive had proposed seeking out alternate means forward but the plant zone had cleared before they had the chance. They had an easy time passing through the rubble of what had previously been the plant-infested region. They were wary of danger, but the surviving jungle was made up of regular plant life. It was even monster free, courtesy of the now-dead carnivorous plant.

Clearing the zone, Clive was glad to hear from his team over voice chat. He announced his intention go find them, signalling the end of their temporary alliance. Each member of the group was from a different teams and had their own people to find, but Abarca, Campos and Hildebrand were reluctant to part from Valdis. Their teaming with the prince was an opportunity they were loathe to relinquish, each seeking to secure promises of meeting up after the trials. Valdis, clearly no stranger to such encounters, saw them each away smoothly. He, in turn, secured a promise of future dealings from Clive.

Jason already had two of his team members, thus waited for Humphrey and Clive to find them. Keane, who now had one of his own team with them, made friendly farewells before they went to find the rest. Jory was about to head off and seek out his own team, who were all fellows from the various crafting associations. Shade promptly appeared to inform him that every other member of his team had used their escape medallions, so Jory remained with Jason.

There was only an hour or so of good light left. There were days left to seek out the city’s treasures and everyone took what was left of the day to reorganise. Adventurers reconnected with their teams, collected their dead and sometimes made new teams again. Many teams had members who were dead or, for preference, safely extracted via escape medallion. As when they first arrived, then, temporary teams were built from the scraps of those that remained.

Jason had the fortune to have all his team survive to regroup. As he used his map and the voice chat power to collect his team, he did the same for Beth Cavendish’s absent team members. They were the archer, Emily, and Beth’s cousin Mose, who had both arrived safely in the heart of the city.

Many groups were staking out territory around the square, Jason and Beth’s team doing the same while waiting for their disparate members to find them. Groups were rapidly claiming the largely intact buildings that were closest and they picked out a five storey building that turned out to be a square around an open space in the middle. The courtyard inside meant that every floor of the building was splashed with natural light.

As they were taking stock, another group tied to bully them into giving it up, Beth and Jason going outside to meet their challenge. One of the team went pale when Jason responded by manifesting his cloak, rapidly whispering to the others. Jason and Beth shared a querying glance as they watch the group mutter in a huddle. The one who had recognised Jason cloak was using some very aggressive body language.

“What are they saying?” Jason asked quietly. “You have that elf-ears power, right?”

“It’s not an elf ears power!” Beth hissed back at him.

“Yeah, but you have it, right?”

“I can hear them, yes.”

“So, what are they saying?”

“They’re talking about that ridiculous rumour about you killing a bunch of adventurers in a shopping centre.”

“Oh?”

“He’s claiming you killed six people.”

“It was only five,” Jason said. “I bet people think six because there were twelve of them and people just say I killed half.”

“Wait,” Beth asked, turning on Jason. “That actually happened?”

“You didn’t know? Thadwick sent some bottom-feeder thugs to kill me so I wouldn’t reveal his shady land-grab scheme.”

“So you killed them?”

“Some of them,” Jason said defensively. “If you’re fighting twelve guys and they think you aren’t willing to kill them, they aren’t going to back off.”

“You really beat twelve guys?”

“They were all rubbish,” Jason said. “I don’t think any of them even had a full set of powers.”

“You don’t have a full set of powers.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t know that.”

“What does that have to do with…”

Beth trailed off as the other group finished their conversation.

“My friend here thinks you’re some kind of hard man,” one of them challenged Jason.

“Doesn’t really matter what I am,” Jason said. “My friend Humphrey is standing behind you with a sword bigger than you are, so I suggest you jog on, cobber.”

The man turned to find Humphrey standing there, as promised, with his dragon-wing sword slung over one shoulder.

“Yeah well,” the man said as he shuffled off to leave, waving a finger at Jason with transparent bravado. “You should count yourself lucky.”

“Why?” Jason asked. “Are you holding a raffle?”

They watched the group leave, Humphrey dismissing his sword with relief.

“I hate putting it over my shoulder like that,” he said. “It feels like I’m going to tip over the whole time.”

“It was just right,” Jason said. “Casually intimidating, like you might kick the snot out of them as a hobby.”

“You do have very large arms,” Beth said.

“They are quite large, aren’t they?” Jason said. “Do you do any special exercises?”

“We train together,” Humphrey said, giving him a flat look. “You know exactly what exercises I do.”

“So, you’re saying you rub special oil on them when no one’s looking?”

“What?”

Jason dropped his cloak and headed back into the building, calling out loudly.

“Hey Jory! Have you been selling Humphrey special arm oil?”

Three more teams ended up joining Jason and Beth’s in the building they shared. Valdis was his bombastic self, inviting himself and his team in as Clive tried to explain Valdis to the others.

“Imagine Jason, if his father was a diamond rank king,” Clive said as Valdis was already picking out rooms for his people.

“Two of them?” Neil asked. “I’m going up on the roof.”

Neil made himself scarce and Valdis was happily introducing himself, picking each person out from Clive’s descriptions. A celestine woman on Valdis’ team, Sigrid, was quietly apologising for him.

“No worries,” Jason told her. “If Clive says he’s alright, it’s fine.”

“Don’t blame me for this,” Clive said. “I never said it was fine.”

Jason and Sigrid both looked at him.

“Okay, it’s fine,” Clive conceded. “He’s just, you know, a lot. One of you is bad enough.”

“Indentured servant,” Valdis was saying as he greeted Sophie with enthusiasm. “That’s strange. It’s not rude to say that, right? I mean, it is strange. Look at me, though. It’s not like being a prince with an eight-hundred year-old father is normal.”

“Yeah,” Sophie said, “but one is strange in that people give you everything you could possibly want and the other is strange in that people keep trying to give me to sleazy men.”

“I can see how that’s different,” Valdis said. “Now that you say it, though, I have heard some stories about the prince of Calute and a rather unconventional cattle market…”

“Val,” Sigrid said pointedly, cutting him off.

“Right, yes. Not meant to talk about that. Lovely to meet you though.”

The next group to find them and more politely ask to share accommodation was Keane’s. Keane’s team leader was clearly in two minds, but Keane had been insistent. On discovering the presence of Prince Valdis, Keane’s team became significantly more enthused.

The last team to join was that of Padma. The team from Vitesse had already been in the city when most of the teams arrived and had heard a lot of stories while everyone else was reorganising themselves. Padma was keen to hear more about Farrah from Jason and had convinced her team to ask if they could share the building.

That made for thirty-one adventurers, turning the excessive five-story building into a comfortable fit. With so many people, Jason decided to have an impromptu celebration for reaching the centre of the city and recruited Valdis to get everyone involved. Shortly thereafter, all five groups were on top of the roof, music playing courtesy of a recording crystal from Valdis’ collection.

“I kind of just wanted to sleep,” Beth said.

“I think everyone just wanted to sleep,” Humphrey said.

“So why are we having a party?”

“We were outvoted by Jason and the prince.”

“How do two people outvote twenty nine?”

“I’m not sure,” Humphrey said, “ but I think we may need to keep those two apart.”