Maiz stared in front of him. In the past week, he’d run the Path so many times they had blurred together in his mind. Well, it was more accurate to say that he’d begun the Path. Every single time, there was some challenge which caught him off guard, or simply required multiple attempts to best. The first four had been the easiest, ones that anyone could complete even without a title. From there they had ramped up in difficulty, little by little. First he’d had to activated a sequence of enchantments in order within a time limit, which acted as both a puzzle and a test of his speed. Then he’d had to move forward through a barrage of random spells which would send him back to the stone door if they hit him. Another test had the same stamina-draining enchantment as in the trial, and another was focused around climbing and balance, like the test of Dexterity had been. Maiz had relearned his Jump and Climb skills, realizing that he’d missed almost two weeks of potential gains. But in all of that time, there was something Maiz hadn’t encountered until that moment.

Stairs.

‘The Path is a forge, a series of challenges and tests meant for the great champion of Lord Nomenadon. Others walk it, even to its completion, but its true lessons can only be learned by the Great One. Still, it is a gauntlet that aids many in their advancement. The challenges it provides are valuable to children and Masters alike. It is truly one of the great wonders left in the world.’

After seeing as much of the thing he had, Maiz couldn’t really dispute Isa’s words, though the bit about Nomenadon’s Chosen still rankled. But there was something he hadn’t really thought about until that moment. Unlike the Trial, the Path was completely indoors, existing without the aid of portals. So how big was the Temple of the Sands, exactly? He supposed someone had decided that building up would be prudent, and he couldn’t really fault them. Still, he couldn’t help but feel that the staircase before him had a symbolic element, and with a smile, he began to climb.

He lost all hints of the smile somewhere around the hour mark. The stairs had begun in a doorway, and they were bordered on either side by stone walls as claustrophobic as any in the Temple. Maiz ascended the perfectly spaced, featureless steps in silence, his footfalls making almost no noise with his bare feet and high Dexterity. It occurred to him that a month ago, he would have collapsed at this point--in fact, he would have been completely unable to even get this far, let alone walk up these steps without pause for an hour on top of it. It was almost disquieting, to feel so different from himself. He hadn’t had much time to consider it either, with everything that had happened after he got his title.

But when he thought about it a little more, the vague unease faded and his thoughts, his resolve, hardened. He still had a goal, a plan which he held in higher importance than his orders from Viselys himself. And this was how he would make that plan a reality.

Of course, he first had to finish climbing these godsdamned stairs. Sighing, he turned on his Mana Sense. It had been nice to ruminate for a bit while feeling like he was doing something, but clearly there was something more going on with these stairs. Sure enough, the corridor was awash in a myriad of colors, all representing powerful enchantments and spells. So what’s the trick here? He couldn’t hope to figure it out by examining the enchantments. The simplest ones here still made his healing bracelet look trivial: all were the works of Masters and, he suspected, God-Chosen of the past. After all, there was no reason to assume that others hadn’t cropped up over the centuries, even after the Trial was ended.

No, but he could see what was enchanted. It wasn’t the stairs themselves, it was the walls. They had some sort of strange, swirling magic that chiefly pulsed a deep yellow. Strange. Maiz’s first thought had been that the stairs were like miniature portals, taking him backwards with no sign that he was repeating the same set over and over. What other options could there be, though? It was supremely unlikely that the Temple was that tall--Maiz had the stamina and regeneration to climb comfortably at a rate faster than an ordinary person could match, and a building tall enough to hold so many stairs would likely have been visible to Maiz from where he’d first entered the desert.That left one option: illusion. And it took very little guesswork to figure how he could break it.

It had been impossible not to notice, over his continuous challenges of the Path, that the tests thus far were extremely reminiscent of the God’s Trials. It was what had proven its authenticity to Maiz. Undoubtedly, that was what it was meant to do for Nomenadon’s Chosen as well. But there was one bit of that experience, an experience remembered only by God-Chosen and Celestials, that he hadn’t seen simulated yet.

Maiz closed his eyes, remembering darkness press around him. He drilled into his own mind, as he had done once before, and continued walking.

He felt resistance, remarkably similar to how the Naming Ritual had felt, though not as painful, and without the actual voices in his head. But it had only been a month ago that Maiz had broken through wall after wall to reach the end of that Ritual, and Maiz’s mind was still as unshakable as stone when it came to this. He pushed through, and felt the resistance break easily. Then he almost stumbled as his next step landed on flat ground. Opening his eyes, Maiz felt his smile return. He had reached the second floor.

*************

“Hugan.”

“Yeah?” Hugan looked at Lila, finding it difficult to focus on her. They’d gotten lost more than once, hidden from quite a few caravans and travelers, but they’d finally made it to Caelos!

“I think I should head out now.”

Hugan blinked. “What?”

Lila was a strange travelling companion. She was friendly enough, though she didn’t like to talk quite as much as Hugan did. But sometimes, especially when they’d run into other people in the road she’d gotten… ‘closed off’ was the best way Hugan could describe it. She just took command in such a way that Hugan knew he had no chance of going against her wishes. It was a bit scary for a Novice to be like that.

“I… have a place I need to be. My home. It’s important that I go now, or people I know might be in danger.”

She was talking like someone out of a story. Hugan loved stories--his ba would tell him one every night as a child, and when he was older he’d go to taverns in his free time just in case there was someone there telling a tale. That was something he really missed about Maiz: the other boy knew most of the stories Hugan did, and he’d listen while Hugan talked about them. He wasn’t one to tell his own, but that was fine.

But stories were stories, and this was real life. It had only taken a few days of bigheadedness after Hugan got his title for him to realize that. “How come you can’t tell me?”

She studied him for a moment, frowning. Her odd gray eyes flashed a little, but then her shoulders slumped. “It doesn’t matter any more.”

Words appeared above her head. Lila-Apprentice Warrior Monk.

This time, Hugan was really surprised. How was Lila an Apprentice? She hadn’t done any fighting since the training grounds, and besides, she hadn’t done her feat yet!

“Congratulations!” However she’d done it, Lila was an Apprentice now. Hugan was a little jealous, to his shame. He thought he’d finally be able to one up Lila, since he’d already completed his Apprentice feat. But she was still his friend, and it was always a happy day when your friend advanced. She also had a title Hugan had never seen before, he noticed. Was that why she had to leave?

Lila was studying him, and a little smile played across her lips. “Thanks. But, uh, I have to go now, to… find something. It’s important for my future.”

Huh? What was she looking for? Some ancient weapon, or lost Dungeon? “Can I come?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because, it’s dangerous.”

Hugan laughed. “I’m a Warden, Lila. I could take ten times as many hits as you!”

Lila threw him a frustrated look, but she wasn’t nearly as scary as she had been those other times. She looked uncertain, for some reason, but Hugan didn’t understand women. He never would, according to his ba.

“It’s not that kind of dangerous, and besides, I’m an Apprentice!”

Hugan snorted. “If you want to get into a punching contest where we stand still, I’d bet you cry yield first. And what do you mean?” Why couldn’t she just get to the point already?

She let out an explosive sigh. “I’m going into the Waste, Hugan. I can go because of my title, but you…”

Oh. The dangerous, wild land full of monsters and Dungeons, not to mention a harsh environment that killed most people by itself? “I’m definitely coming with you!” His favorite stories were from the desert! It was where Slasher Dane hunted the snake-people, where the Sandstorm fought ancient horrors from lost cities, where Roon the Defender wandered for ten years before he came back to Caelos a Master!

Lila looked doubtful, though. “How are you going to survive?”

Now Hugan frowned. It was a perfectly valid question. “How are you?”

“I can hold off on water and food for a pretty long time, it’s a skill.”

“Oh. That’s a good skill! But I just have a whole lot of Constitution. If we had a camel or something, I think that’d be enough water to get… Where are we going?”

“The Temple of the Sands.”

That sounded sort of familiar to Hugan. “Sounds interesting! So does that work, then?”

She looked perplexed. “I… think so? I’m not really sure. It took me a week to from there to the edge, walking day and night.

That sounded difficult, but Hugan had learned at the forge that you didn’t shy away from difficult things. “We can do it.”

After a long moment, Lila nodded. “All right then, we should head towards a nomad camp. I should be able to get us supplies and a camel, even if we have to do some work for them or something.”

“Wait, what? Why? We’re only ten minutes away from my family’s house! We should go and get some supplies and sleep, at least. And directions.”

Now it was Lila’s turn to blink, as though she hadn’t considered the idea. She was just like Maiz, really--they were well matched for each other. They both looked so hard at the future they missed the things right in front of their faces. Hugan had his dreams, but he had a habit of looking at his feet as he walked towards them. He hadn’t fallen yet.

“Ok, let’s do that,then."

As they entered through the open end of the city, where the walls had long ago been outgrown, Hugan had a thought. ”Hey, if you don’t need to drink water, why did you take all of that messenger’s a week back?”

Lila looked straight ahead, not answering, but Hugan saw her ears flush. Ah well. She was about to meet his parents, anyways. Hugan missed them, but most people would say that the experience more than made up for a single waterskin. Hugan shuddered a little when he thought what his mother would say when he told her where he would be going. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned this plan after all.