Huh? A challenge?

For Welkin and the others to be assisting—Orlisi had briefly mentioned talking to Welkin about working on her 'path' at the next Grand Games practice. The way she said it had sounded a bit ominous at the time, but the elf girl had seemed so cheerful all day… suspiciously cheerful now that Ria thought about it.

Maybe the unfriendly reception and oppressive auras were a test of some kind? A test of courage? Maybe to help her better withstand the presence of fearsome opponents? Or maybe, the crowds at the arena?

The expressions and tense formality suggested otherwise. As did having the team’s strongest members manning the safety magic.

Whatever the reason, a duel to improve her skills suited Ria’s mood just fine. She had been itching for a good fight to help her work through the built-up stress of the last few days. Even so, her teammates’ auras were no joke. Her hands twitched, wanting the comfort of weapons in their grip, and she barely stopped herself from reaching for the handle of the magic dagger she used to always wear belted to her waist.

Prove the truth of her path was what Orlisi had instructed.

Ria took a deep breath, and forming the domain spell using her custom orichalcum glyph, she projected out her own aura to rebuff the others and entered the training hall, letting the large door swing closed behind her and Ranger.

With the exception of Rialle and Tallien, who were the only members sitting on the bleachers observing, silent and expressionless faces greeted her progress. Like Ria, the alchemist and the fire mage didn’t seem to know what was going on, and Rialle’s familiar, peeking out from its contractor’s shoulder, apparently found the situation as intimidating as Ria did.

Worrisomely, only the senior members were present—no first or second-years other than her. Katria was absent, as well. Was it really special training like she had assumed?

Or… might she actually be about to be disciplined… or possibly tested for future leadership in the Order, maybe?

Or maybe it really was just a matter between disciples of the same martial art?

As Ria arrived at a position opposite Orlisi, Ranger at her side, she pressed her fist against her hand and bowed. “This unworthy disciple presents herself to elder disciple.”

The accepting nod from Orlisi seemed to approve, and Ria was relieved to at least have gotten the expected etiquette for the situation correct.

“Are you prepared, Disciple Ria?”

“Apologies, elder disciple. This disciple is not sure what is required of her to properly respond to the elder disciple’s challenge.”

“You can use any magic, weapon, or physical technique that you want, but the truth you have found must withstand my challenge. You will have until the end of the practice session to succeed.”

Ria’s eyebrows raised in surprise. Not only were they planning to spend the whole practice session on her, but… “Welkin said orichalcum magic will interfere with the safety magic. Won’t that be a problem?”

“To give you this chance, the others will strive to maintain the safety magic even so. Ready yourself, Ria, this will be unlike what you’ve faced until now, and unless Ranger is part of your path or you can empower Ranger with your truth, I recommend he be excluded from the challenge.”

“Woof!” Ranger volunteered his readiness.

She could empower Ranger, but what would happen if she empowered him with orichalcum energy? She wasn’t sure. But she was aware enough now to know Ranger would hate being sent to the sidelines again after how much he had endured this past week to gain the strength to stay at her side.

“This disciple would fight alongside her familiar.”

Orlisi nodded, and took up a stance. “Honor the challenge, seeker of the way: present your truth.”

The ritual sounding phrase seemed to indicate the start of the challenge; the auras from the others faded away and the safety magic wrapped itself around Ria and Orlisi. A visually shimmering dome solidified around the dueling oval.

Divination and water spells formed around Orlisi accompanied by a terrible pressure—like standing before an oncoming wall of flood waters. Ria couldn’t help feeling a wave of fear wash over her as storming winds suddenly pressed and scraped against her domain, probing.

Out of instinct more than conscious thought, Ria cast her body-strengthening spell and empowered Ranger, barely finishing before catching a glint of blue in the corner of her vision, streaking low to the ground.

Ranger swiftly moved to interpose himself, and summoning her practice dagger and Air Shield wand, Ria charged forward to close the distance with the elf who had surrounded herself with a dangerous windswept and writhing tangle of water tentacles. Before Ria could get more than a few steps, the tentacles spasmed, and half of the mass whipped forward like the limbs of an eldritch horror only found in stories, each snake-like limb crashing against her domain with the speed and force of rushing mountain rapids, striking from all directions.

Ria tried to strengthen her domain’s properties of ‘indestructibility’ and ‘time’ to rebuff or at least slow the attack, but something about Orlisi’s water-element attack quenched the primal fires of her magic, smashed through the indestructibility, and overcame the weight of time with the unrelenting pressure of an endless flow of water. A hastily cast air shield did little else to slow the attack.

She tried to dodge, but there were too many, and the water’s flexibility and Orlisi’s superior control over an element boosted by elven nature affinity allowed the impossibly fast tentacles to cut off all paths of escape.

The impact with her body swept her feet out from under her and the training hall spun. A sharp smack to the face caused her to jerk her head backward into the hard floor just as she crashed to her back, sliding along the smooth stone. Light flashed behind her eyes, and she was already moments from blacking out.

Only force of will and months training with Tina allowed her to turn her slide into a roll and unsteadily throw herself backward over a grasping watery limb back onto her feet, but tentacles of water were already waiting and struck, again crashing through her domain and again knocking her back to the ground—this time a whip of water traced a gash across her cheek, leaving her gasping at the sudden phantom pain.

A pained yelp and snarl from Ranger reminded Ria that she wasn’t fighting alone.

She blasted out a wave of molten fire to clear some space and rolled to get up, but as soon as the flare passed, a tentacle again tore through her domain and nicked her ear with a lightning-like crack, causing her to flinch away instinctively and fall painfully back to the floor.

Ria growled in frustration. She was being toyed with! Like a water sprite pulling children under for amusement and drowning them when it grew bored, that was the sort of indifferent malice she was feeling from the elf challenging her.

Another yelp and snarl came from Ranger.

“If you don’t like her being attacked, then you just have to stop me, Ranger,” Orlisi taunted, her arm raised as a third spell formed. “Nature is fickle and as cruel as it is kind, bringing about tragedy as often as blessing.”

Ranger continued throwing himself in the way of the tentacles, biting and slashing through them to disrupt the spell and keep as many from reaching Ria as he could—even though one of his forelegs no longer seemed able to fully support his weight.

Ria tapped her foot and extended her sensing sphere to better meet the attacks that were relentlessly continuing to come at her. She sliced the tentacles she couldn’t dodge, using bursts of shadow magic to temporarily disrupt the watery limbs until Orlisi reformed them.

Orlisi’s strength was unbelievably different from the last time they fought, and Ria was just barely holding on.

Would desperately fending off the attacks be enough to pass the challenge?

Even if it were, such a ‘win’ would be thoroughly unsatisfying.

Through the sensing magic and the bond, she cheered on Ranger’s valiant efforts while barely managing her own defense but soon learned what Orlisi's third spell was for. When Ranger caught one of the whips in his jaws, instead of the water dissipating under the magical force of his empowerment, it horrifically flooded into his mouth, pulse after pulse reinforcing the previous.

Ranger jerked about in panic and pain but couldn’t disrupt the magic or break free, lifted up off the ground by the watery limb filling his lungs and tied immobile by others.

Remembering her own experience with the quickslime just outside Vorshan’s Hills, Ria felt her anger and indignation rising. There was no need to be that cruel!

She moved to save Ranger, but the tentacles formed a wall of flowing water separating her from saving her familiar as he drowned and took simulated internal injury from Orlisi’s spell.

Ria tried another wave of molten fire, but to her shock, the water withstood it, rebuffing her efforts.

Ranger wouldn’t last much longer, and in her desperation, Ria knew what magic she had to use. Though she held trepidation about attempting the molten chains on another person after what happened to Rialle, she wouldn’t abide what Orlisi was doing to Ranger, and arm thrust toward Orlisi, fingers splayed, she called forth the magic.

The orichalcum energy came easy, and with only the briefest of hesitations, she formed the powerful chains to bind Orlisi’s magic, their glowing links rapidly wrapping around the mass of tentacles and constricting like chain snakes. A hiss filled the training hall as gushing waters from the elf girl’s spell evaporated into billowy clouds.

Ria clamped down with her will, and Rialle’s tormented face flashed through her mind, but she kept her focus and pushed the traumatic memory aside. She would trust Welkin to stop her again if she went too far.

Just as Ria was beginning to feel confident that Orlisi’s magic would be sealed and Ranger freed, a torrential storm of wind and water suddenly pulsed outward with a force and reality that overcame her own, quenching and weathering the chains as it pushed them back until they yielded under the pressure, and a flood of rioting water and screaming winds rushed out to wash Ria off her feet and against the dueling barrier.

While she was defending against the onslaught of wind and water, her connection with Ranger was lost, just as had happened during the tournament when he was defeated by Halis in the final round.

A second growl of frustration escaped her, and she raised her head to glare at the elf now floating in the air, eyes glowing and hair whipping about from the energy emitting out. The girl looked like a nature spirit provoked to wrath as wind and water formed twisting and swirling waterspouts around her.

Fear and self-doubt again threatened to overcome Ria’s anger, indignation, and frustration.

How could she win against that?!

“Weak.” Orlisi’s face remained impassive as the word thundered out like the proclamation of a messenger from the heavens. “Neither of you are far enough along the path of Beast Arts for Ranger to fight beside you.”

Ria regretted putting Ranger through this. It was sure to be a blow to his newly earned confidence. Would it have turned out differently if she had worked on the Beast Arts manual with Ranger instead of doing the invitations with Keira…?

No. Looking at Orlisi, she already knew the answer. Whatever shallow understanding they could have gained from a single night’s effort would never have stood up to the mastery that her elf friend had shown. Orlisi had tried to warn her.

Even so, the elf girl didn’t have to be so mean about proving it.

A whip of water flashed through Ria’s domain.

Caught in a distracted moment of doubt, Ria mustered only a feeble defense and the water crashed into her head with a deafening slap. The world spun until it didn’t and she was half-submerged in the ankle-deep water that remained from the earlier attacks.

Too dizzy to maintain her magic, she just lay there crumpled on her side as her domain dissipated along with her body-strengthening and sensing sphere spells.

“Are you giving up so easily?” Orlisi settled to the ground and the storm abated. “Are you dishonoring the challenge, disciple?”

Ria ground her teeth and propped herself up enough to restore her breath without water lapping at her face. “I don’t have enough energy left… to make a difference, and there’s no way I can win…”

“Your truth should produce energy.”

It wha-? Was that how Orlisi still had so much? …and why she seemed to be emitting energy earlier?

“Shall we stop?”

Ria’s gaze went to Ranger lying against the barrier, his chest rising and falling as if asleep, and to Hulle and Welkin who were maintaining the safety spell together with Ulren and Endreise. Everyone was expending so much energy to help her train.

Closing her eyes, she thought back about her training with Tina and how she eagerly persevered even knowing she couldn’t win. Why was she acting defeated? Even Leon always…

Was this how Leon felt when she sparred with him?

Ria pushed herself into a sitting position and pressed her fist into her palm. “If elder disciple would allow it, this disciple would recover her energy and try again.”

Orlisi considered her for several moments. “Simple determination isn’t enough. You must grasp your truth and impose it on the world and your opponent.”

“If elder disciple has any advice to offer…” Ria tried, bowing her head.

The elf girl sighed, cleaned up the water, and let her aura dissipate. “Your elder disciple does have some ideas on things to test that might help pinpoint the problem. We only have a limited amount of time, so we can’t take too long though.” Orlisi’s eyes drifted over to Ranger. “Tallien, remove Ranger from the barrier, and join us. Rialle, you too.”

Ria wasn’t sure what Orlisi had in mind but gave her thanks anyway and, taking up the unified meditation pose, began reflecting over the battle as she drew in energy from the floor.

Welkin dropped the safety magic and he and the others also sat to meditate. Ulren grumbled, and neither he nor Endreise seemed particularly happy. Welkin’s expression was unreadable, and Hulle soon returned to watching her through his glasses as always.