Crow Tempora wasn't a coward by any measure. In fact he'd faced down things that were far beyond him and came out alive, either due to luck on his own part or negligence on the opposition’s. Whichever the cause was didn't matter, no matter the situation, no matter the adversity; he never lost his cool. Even now, seeing the smooth, seemingly unscratchable walls confining him, watching the multitude of other people staring at him, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as if he were being observed by some unseen predator, he wasn’t…. He was losing his cool.

"All this to join a school." The stranger mused. Unlike Crow, he seemed thoroughly at home in the strange, mysterious dungeon. In fact thinking back on it Crow could’ve sworn he’d heard him giggle as the walls appeared.

"We should get moving Crow, we don't have all day."

"Wait, what's going on?" He asked, hands going through his golden hair as he slowly got to his feet.

"My Lord, all you authentics are slow." The stranger sighed, shaking his head. "Check your Gauger."

"My what?"

"Gauger." He said slowly now with a slightly frustrated look, his hands gestured to a small band wrapped around his wrist. There was a smooth surface of what looked like slate built into the strap..

Crow looked at his wrist and blinked twice as he saw the same on him. The grey stone on what he assumed was his “Gauger” had a number of glowing symbols on top of it. Numbers written in Gean, the language spoken across the continent of Unix.

'Task briefing: Be amongst the first five to escape the map. Failure to do so will result in disqualification. Success will result in progression to the next stage.'

Crow didn't know what grade points were,he didn't know what the map was but it didn't matter. He had to begin focusing on what was urgent. He took in his surroundings. On closer examination, the strangers surrounding him on all sides all looked to be around his age- most a few years older, but none of them over seventeen. They also appeared just as confused as he was, and a few were heading towards him. The closest was a blonde girl maybe his age at fifteen, she had just come to within a few meters of him when her head suddenly snapped back and she stumbled a step or two away.

Hands to her head, the girl stared at the space in front of her, and after a few seconds Crow realised what she was fixating on. The air rippled slightly in the spot her head had been when it jerked backwards, and this slight rippling became far more pronounced when she frantically began to slam her fist against it. Her mouth was moving quite a lot as she stared at something on the other side of the invisible barrier, no... someone. A girl a year or so older than her, one which looked quite a lot like her… Messiah’s tear, she’d been separated from her sister.

All around the hall there were similar occurrences, people wildly hurling magic at thin air only for their attempts to be rebound as though it were a solid object. Some even slammed their shoulders against the blockades, none of it worked. The room full of people had been split into several groups, each one walled off from the others and capable of moving around only in their own space. And each one looked like they were standing before a number of corridors, Crow eyed his own for a second but couldn’t see far enough down them to get any idea of which one he’d prefer to take. Everyone in the room was completely terrified. He could see it in their eyes, it made them worry but it made him calm. He wasn’t the only one here who was out of his element, in fact there was only one person he’d seen so far who wasn’t…. Crow cleared his throat and looked back at the stranger..He let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding and addressed him.

"You want me to team up with you?"

"Yeah." The boy said. His grin beaming. "Don't tell me you're gonna say no again."

"I'm not." Crow replied. "But under one condition: you get to lead but I get to pick our teammates."

The stranger frowned, then rolled his eyes.

"Fine."

He gestured to the group of twenty to twenty nine people that stood before them, all with the same befuddled expressions Crow himself he once had. To say they looked like fish out of water would be an understatement as it was more likely they looked like cloud's without winds; lacking purpose, drive or direction. "Take your pick."

"All of them." Crow said with a grin to him.

"All of them?- No." He said simply, as though he were being challenged to debate the color of the sky.

Crow rolled his eyes. "Hey guys!" The people in the room all looked at him. The Sieve was a contest that spanned the continent and more, people from all over the face of Mirandis were both allowed and eager to attend. It was for this reason that those among the crowd with hair made out of fire or forked tongues flicking out from between their lips did not particularly surprise Crow, or at least as not as they would have had he met them anywhere else. Of course having the eyes of that many strangers, physically divergent or not, would unnerve anybody. He held all of their attention. A fickle hold, like he was grasping water.

"Let's all team up. I know we're all confused and we all wanna make it out of here but we have to admit one thing, whatever's out there, we can't handle it on our own."

They stood there for a second, fiddling with his words and drinking it in. One boy spoke up, he looked slightly older than Crow though it was hard to tell as his hood shaded half his face.

"Why should we trust you?"

Crow bit his tongue, the question he knew he was Ill equipped to answer came and he froze up. It was only for a second but he could feel their attention drifting, like a stream changing Channels.

"We're not asking you to trust him."

The stranger said from behind him, seizing control of the crowd. His grin and erratic movements were gone and replaced with a grounded intensity. He looked and carried himself like a leader. "I look at all of you now and I can see one thing: You will all fail alone. But if you stick with us, just know that your failures would bring me closer to my success, which is all that really matters in the grand scheme of things. I think I've made my point quite clear and I trust you to see reason-" he was cut off as a can bounced off his face and the crowd began to disperse into various passage ways.

Had the result of the stranger’s speech not been so disastrous for his plans, Crow would have laughed. He looked at the boy and saw him looking completely unfazed, in fact he didn’t even appear surprised- as if things had gone exactly as he’d planned, or wanted.

"Eh they'll come back to me eventually." He shrugged.

"They literally cannot even if they wanted to."

A feminine voice rang from behind. Crow and the stranger turned to the source and saw a girl leaning against the wall. She had dark eyes and red skin. Small black horns peeked out through hair, though they were hard to see given that they were of the same hue. Crow recognised her as a Onī, or at least he thought that was what she was. Her body radiated with a deep red aura. It felt almost like a flame, like a campfire or torch. As Crow looked more intently, however, he decided that it was far more akin to the burning gunpowder of a musket the moment before firing.

"Did- did I say something wrong?" She added.

Before Crow could respond with something nice and inoffensive, the stranger answered her.

"Why are you still here?"

She practically scowled at him, arms folding.

"You two seemed like the only ones who knew what you were doing."

"Our mistake then. Good-bye." The stranger shot back with a sickly sweet smile. He began walking towards a passage when Crow caught him by the arm and sighed before turning back to the . "Sorry about my err... companion. Please, you're welcome to join us."

He whirled, looked at Crow then looked at the girl and then back at Crow.

"Are you by chance insane? Or just having an untimely lapse of judgement?"

"What? You agreed to me picking teammates."

"I don't trust her."

"What's there not to trust about her." He said, gesturing to the girl, then quickly lowering his hand at the look of irritation she had on her face- probably stemming from being talked about as though she weren’t there.

"Crow! She's glowing Red!. Does that not seem ominous to you?"

"We had a deal."

He opened his mouth to speak but simply took a sharp breath and turned his gaze to the girl.

"Onī." He said, calling her by her species name with a sneer plastered across his face that made it abundantly clear it was no thoughtless impoliteness. "Try not to stab us in the back okay?"

She grinned sourly before answering.

"I would never, with you it'll be in the face."

The stranger giggled before practically skipping into the passage. The two followed behind, Crow in between. After a few steps the Onī turned to him, extending an open hand.

"I'm Ethi."

"Crow." He replied, smiling and reaching out with his own hand to shake hers. She reciprocated the smile, then spoke.

"Like the ominous dark bird associated with death and literally referred to as a “murder” in large numbers?"

"Yeah, it's a nickname. Don't worry I assure you I set aside four hours everyday to brood in the darkness so I can earn it." He chuckled. "Helps the cheek muscles too."

"Well I assure you, your cheek muscles are very well built, though frankly if you’re aiming for dark and ominous you might want to drop the smiling."

The stranger sighed "Let the record state that I disapprove of all of this." He drawled, hands lazily gesturing in their general direction. "Whatever this is."

Crow wasn’t looking at her, but assumed Ethi rolled her eyes before she spoke.

"And what's your name?"

"I don't know, ah uhm." He ran his fingers against the dirt layered wall then shrugged. "Dust."

Ethi hissed. "That's not a real name."

"You just made that up." Crow rolled his eyes.

"Yes I did." He chuckled, quite amused with his shenanigans. "Sue me."

"Fine then...Dust, where are we going?" She asked.

He sighed. "It's Unity and to be frank wherever the wind takes us."

"That doesn't sound very reassuring." Ethi murmured.

"I'm sorry, who imposed themselves on our team, was it you or me?" Unity replied.

"It was me, and it's a decision every second I spend with you makes me constantly regret."

He tilted his gaze to him. "You see, Crow , this is why I keep women at arm's length. They want you when they think you're going places but the moment life gets bumpy, they don't stop whining and complaining."

"She's right Unity, do you at least have any idea where we're going?" He sighed, shaking his head.

"No I don't. Why would I pretend to be lost? Is that a thing people do for entertainment like... hiking?" Crow sighed, between the two of his new partners he was growing tired of snide sarcasm. Thankfully Unity dropped the snark for just a moment as he continued.

"I need to know exactly where we are or at least what we're in. Right now those glyphs above tell me it's either a temple or a palace so there's that."

Crow looked up at the glowing orange patterns on the ceiling, he knew how to read glyphs. These didn't look like proper glyphs.

"How do you know that?" Ethi asked.

"They aren't in Gean but they seem pretty similar. I assume they’re probably from the early years after the Obscured Age ended." He answered.

"And how can you read that? If you're right it's likely a forgotten language." Crow looked at the boy and watched him slowly cock his head to the side then shrug.

"Instinct."

Before Crow could object they had stepped out of the narrow passage and into another circular room, this one had only one other corridor leading out of it aside from the one they'd just come through.

Unity looked to the ceiling and Crow followed his gaze. It was an image of the almighty; the teary eyed God, gazing down upon the three. Or rather it was an artist’s interpretation, seeing as the God in question had its face obscured by a veil.

"So it's a temple." Crow said.

"Everything that's in here, from the rooms we pass through to the dust on the walls, they're here to give us clues to our location." Ethi muttered as she began pacing around.

"So they teleported probably hundreds of mystics to desecrate sacred grounds for a test?" Crow frowned.

Unity genuinely looked baffled by Crow's ignorance.

"What? No. Are you retarded? This isn't real, none of this is real...it's most likely a really close replica stuffed in a pocket dimension... didn't you listen to the orientation?"

"Orientation?" Crow asked very slowly, like a man stepping on a fifty year old land mine and hoping it didn't go off. He wanted to ask about the mention of pocket dimensions too, but decided not to show his own ignorance on matters which did not directly relate to events. He remembered Astra mentioning them as a high form of Itamis, the eighth of the nine spheres of magic and one that allowed control over the fabric of space itself. He’d never known they could fit an entire temple inside them, though.

"Two days ago...they briefed participants on the basic mechanics of the tests." Even Ethi seemed shocked by his lack of knowledge, which made Crow feel quite relieved at his not pressing for details on anything else.

"The real temple is probably somewhere gathering sand underground."

"Oh...I...I just arrived in Bermuda like...five hours ago."

Unity and Ethi both sighed and looked back up at the drawing. The Almighty had his arms outstretched with four fingers out on his left and another four out on his right.

"He's not looking at us. He's looking at the entire building." Crow mused. "Look at the fingers, It's likely a tower and we're on the fourth floor and the exit is directly below."

"That... makes sense." Unity added, almost reluctantly. He nodded to Crow who followed as they walked into the passage. The three walked for a while before Crow slammed his nose into the back of Unity's head just as the boy came to a stop.

"Ow." He rubbed his nose.

"Holy crap... I've figured out where we are."

"What?" Ethi asked. "How?"

Unity turned, facing the two. "That drawing depicted the Almighty."

"Yeah... his face and features were covered though so-" Unity cut off Crow swiftly.

"Yeah I know, but it didn't only depict him. It represented the Teary eyed God in a humanoid form. If this was made as early as we think it was then something like depicting God as a humanoid rather than some all encompassing sun would be seen as blasphemous. Back then anyone who wanted a humanoid figure to worship had to make do with worshipping the first mystic, Adeus."

Crow saw Unity's eyes and there was no mistaking it, there was a spark to it, in fact a true intensity with how he moved and talked, his hands quivered and swayed around with each word, as though animated by the vigour of his words. Such was Unity’s energy that it was with utmost hesitation that Crow contradicted him.

"That narrows it down, but even in the Obscured Age organizations which went against the Solifates were still plentiful... in fact they were the reason the Illuminated Age even started."

Unity seemed almost impatient as he replied.

"I know, I know. But how many not only spoke Gean, but had the economic status to create a tower and at the same time were educated enough to write fluent ancient gean glyphs on the walls." He chuckled then giggled, his hands combing through his hair.

"Gentlemen and women. We are in the famed deathly tower of Ma-hantel."

Crow paled but felt the excitement buzz underneath his skin like his very cells were becoming more and more alive with each second of being here.

"And on that day, a thousand entered one way, and their blood poured out the other."

"That's what the poem says." Ethi added, her voice soft and filled with a weary air. "This place is filled with ancient traps from a time when morality was just a suggestion."

Crow walked next to Unity, who quite surprisingly patted his back.

"So with those eyes you can see the future huh Crow?"

Ignoring the stark look of astonishment he caught on Ethi’s face from the corner of his vision, Crow tentatively answered.

"Uh I'm not that skilled with it yet. I can only tell where an immediate attack is coming from the moment before it happens, and even that only works when I know I'm in danger."

"Oh. Well Crow" He sighed then met his eyes with a grin. "You're in danger."

Unity shoved Crow forward. He had just enough time to swear loudly before he stumbled and heard the soft, deadly clicking of mechanisms and devices going off just beneath the wall, about to release the wrath of the Eclipse upon him. There was a long pause, or rather an instantaneous one lengthened by anticipation, and Crow felt the familiar sensation of time peeling back under his gaze. He glimpsed ahead, seeing not just the space before him but the events as well- and gasped as he witnessed a spear rip through the air and impale him through the right side of his neck.