Beth was feeling exhausted as she entered the fifth trial of the session. Tem hadn’t been exaggerating when they’d told her that they get longer the higher level you were. Already she had spent three weeks completing Trials and if she was honest all she wanted in the world was to sleep in her own bed for a night. Well almost the only thing she wanted in the world. She wanted to finally reach level 5 slightly more than she wanted to go home and for that reason she was powering on. One more Trial and she would be golden. Further she wouldn’t be surprised if Pete was also out there getting to level 5 and wanted to be getting it at the same time as him. Even if factually that meant missing the next Trial.

Missing the next Trial was a confusing thought to Beth. After all even with her skill there were only a finite number of Trials she could take. For example if hypothetically you took a person born on an initiated planet they would have twelve Trial opportunities a year every year till they died at their seventieth birthday pre-Trial. A good life expectancy for anybody who made it past childhood, at leaast a reasonable life expectancy pre-initiation. That would be 696 Trial session. Each of them had a maximum of 10 Trial Credits available meaning a maximum level of 1392. Obviously, that wouldn’t happen because of the difficulty of Trials but that was the maximum available if they took advantage of every opportunity.

Even then this number could be even higher. After all Beth had earnt bonus Trial Credits from her Sponsored Trial that had been put towards skills due to her over delivering in the Trial. Then logically if their was one skill like Trial Taker, there was probably others that Beth didn’t know about. Let alone other methods completely. It was a big universe and though she wouldn’t like to admit it there was a lot out there Beth didn’t know. What she did know however was that she was going to get to level 5 that Trial. Whatever it took.

This Trial started different than the others. She didn’t find herself in the middle of the action or even with a clear destination or goal. Instead she was in a wait room, much like the one she’d ended up in when preparing to host her Sponsored Trial. It was however, a much busier room this full of people of all species and sizes. The room was more or less devoid of chatter. Instead people seemed to be sat calmly, meditating or practising their skills as they waited.

With a start Beth realised that nobody in the room had a nameplate, even when Beth tried to focus on where it should be. Clearly there was some kind of magic being placed over the room to stop people getting information about others. Noticing a couple of people speaking to themselves Beth tried to listen in. Hoping to gleam some further information about the situation but Beth found that despite facing no real language barriers prior she couldn’t understand anything being said. Even when people came out if the adjacent rooms and clearly called people’s names she only heard a murmuring that sounded almost English but not quite.

That was until eventually after sitting for a while twiddling her thumbs she heard a voice that should could actually understand, not in the least because it was shouting her name. Getting up she saw somebody waving in her general direction from the opposite end of the long waiting hall. Heading over she recognised him as a merwarf, not dissimilar in build or stature to Pearcival following his beckoning she stepped into the room that was actually identical to the one she had met Opal in months prior.

Much like Opal had the merwarf, who did have a nameplate and was called Gauwaine, had a stake of paper files on his desk that he flicked through as Beth made herself comfortable on her side of the desk. Beth idly wondered why he hadn’t pre-read the files unaware of the life that was dealing with bureaucracy with a constant stream of clients. Eventually he seemed to have pulled all the information he needed from the files and set them down. Though his eyes did continue to flick to the side, clearly checking information on screens Beth couldn’t see.

“Right. So Beth the information I have here is that this is your first time reaching level 5 in a skill. It’s for the skill walking and besides that you have 4 active skills and one that has been mortgaged or deactivated.” Gauwaine said quickly, clearly asking for the sake of asking rather than actually expecting Beth to disagree. It was a far cry from the warm care she had received from Opal and was instead much more cold and disinterested.

Beth nodded, not wanting to rock the boat and antagonise the guy who was clearly in some way responsible for her next Trial.

“okay, further you have the cosmic mana type right?” Gauwaine stumbled slightly over the word cosmic and raised his eyes meeting Beth’s for the first time.

She nodded again feeling shy from the scrutiny. Gauwaine continued undeterred.

“Okay with that in mind we will be arranging this Trial to be fairly far away from any real civilisation. Further it obviously has to be on a planet you haven’t visited prior to avoid you getting any unfair advantages. Cross referencing your history with our usual walking level 5 Trials we have two options. As is procedure we will choose the option randomly.” With that he pulled a coin seemingly from the very air, or possibly one of the screens invisible to Beth. He showed her both sides, on one side was an image of a trio of mountains while the other showed a general landmass with a roughly egg-like shape. He flipped the coin into the air expertly and it flew up seemed to hover at the apex of it’s flight still spinning at speeds much higher than Beth would have assumed natural. It was only there a moment or two before gravity reasserted its domanace and the coin began to fall again, still spinning until it landed flat, without further bouncing or momentum.

Both Beth and Gauwaine leaned forward to see which face it landed on. Looking back up at them from the table were three mountains. Seeing the coin closer Beth could see the mountains seemed be surrounded by tiny trees which were all swaying slightly as though reacting to the breeze. Picked the coin back up again Gauwaine flicked it once more but instead of landing it vanished midflight, assumedly going back to wherever it came from.

Meeting Gauwaine’s eye again Beth couldn’t help but notice a glimmer of excitement that wasn’t there prior.

“Okay you will be heading towards the mountain walking Trial. The average time for this Trial is roughly 6 weeks and it has a time limit of 2 months. To pass the Trial you are required to reach the peak of the three mountains on the continent of Hapterel. The method you use to reach these peaks is important as this is a walking Trial and your approach to it should reflect as such. After the Trial you will be transported another time where your level 5 skill will be explorable. While you can then choose to either proceed onwards with your Trials or to stop. We recommend stopping to get acquainted with the new aspects of your skill. Either way if you want to examine this Trial screen before steppping through the rift behind you the timer hasn’t yet started. With that Gauwaine flicked his finger towards Beth and a screen appeared in front of her and sure enough behind her she saw a familiar rift. Though it was odd that it was going to take her to just another place within the same Trial.

Trial: Walking (common) 25

Reach the peak of the three sisters of Hepterel within the time limit.

Time Limit: 2 months

Given the way Gauwaine had talked about examining the Trial screen Beth had assumed it would have a lot more information than it actually did. Assumedly it would be more of a factor in more complicated cases. With nothing further to do, and no real desire to continue chatting to Gauwaine, Beth stepped through the rift into her twenty-fifth walking Trial proper.