Two hours before the Final Rites...

The Archivists' representative for the deliberations had brought back information from the Garbs. This was in the form of a scroll meant for their Head and an organic statuette to record and report the candidate's status during the Rites. The statuette's detail matched Calf's appearance to the last hair, but the uncanny likeness wasn't the most important thing about it. It stood on a cylindrical base that currently glowed green. The base would turn red at the start of the rites and a band or two would appear around it. A single band signified the Standard Rites whilst a double band signified the Extended Rites.

The archivist handed the scroll over to the Head, who accepted, read it, and chuckled at the contents before handing it to the Head of Crafts, who nodded sagely. He instructed the rest of the masters to tend to their preparations and reconvene within the hour at the gazebo. The junior archivist was to stay in the gazebo watching over the statuette. The masters all went in different directions, setting up the props for their respective trial. The last task they had was giving warning and instruction to their students to steer clear of the testing grounds. Though the protocols had been drilled into every participant, there would always be a few hotheads who disregarded rule and either interfered out of curiosity, or in rare cases, malice towards the candidates undertaking the trial. It would likely be the latter in the prince’s case. As time ticked on, masters from different departments trickled into the gazebo.

The first to finish with the preparations was the Head of Archivists. His test though stressful, was more information-based, thus there wouldn't be many props to set up. The scrolls were arranged on a mobile and detachable shelf that would be kept in the receiving room for the trial. Calf's task would be to arrange the scrolls in chronological order, noting every discrepancy he found in the records and either correcting it or making a few guesses as to what would best address the discrepancy. For impartiality, 3 inspectors would score the attempt and Calf would receive the average of the three scores as his result.

Surprisingly, the Warden finished next, having brought a huge reed basket with him to the gazebo. The Head of Archivist's had expected the Warden to require the most time to prepare given the contents of his test, but it seemed he'd planned for it beforehand. His test would be a hunting and tracking test, and the prey would be a rainbow-tailed juvenile hare. It was monikered the 'two-toned hare' and this would likely be one of Calf's hardest challenges. The first tone was elusiveness, a quality it enjoyed due to its strong leg muscles. The second tone would be its illusive nature, and this came from an adaptation over the years to escape predators. The tail could bend light in ways that affected a predator's spatial ability. They'd often get so transfixed by the shifting colors that they'd fail to notice their prey's direction changes in time to course-correct. With time, these abilities would grow to such an extent that it was almost impossible to catch fully mature specimen.

The juveniles couldn't rely on this level of abilities yet, but an additional adaptation made them even more dangerous than their grown counterparts. They formed symbiotic relationships with apex predators, maintaining their burrows in their territory till a time they were almost grown enough to be an appetizer to their hosts. They would forage beyond this territory and when pursued they would run back home. The image of their frantic efforts at escaping, coupled with their minor illusory abilities would evoke a blood lust that pushed their pursuers beyond reason, losing track of their own position in the pursuit. The chase would often end in the pursuer being lured to the hare's benefactor consequently. The Warden expected Calf to chase down and either catch the hare or chase it long enough to deem it an escaped prey but successful hunt. They'd measure the success by the amount of control Calf managed to maintain despite the blood lust the pursuit evoked in him. He would get full marks for either catching his quarry or making enough observations during the pursuit to be able to classify the hare's host correctly. Others had voiced their concerns at the planning session, expressing worry over the flighty prey luring Calf beyond the bounds of the Standard Rites. The Warden had scoffed at this before nonchalantly claiming that possibility an appropriate challenge, a secondary predator of-sorts, ready to gobble him into an Extended Rites should he fail to reign in his bloodlust.

The Head of Crafts arrived next. His trial would be the simplest in structure yet probably the second most difficult due to its free foam nature. Calf would be required to pick any materials from the Craft warehouse, including completed wares, and to use those to fashion tools for his combat test. And whether he win or lose the combat section, he would be scored by how well his equipment benefitted him and how it held up to opposition.

Last, came the Head of Combat, whose trial could be summarized as exactly that, Combat. Calf would engage three intermediates who specialized in ambush tactics. The trial would be a perversion of first blood, with any qualified hit on Calf signalling the end of the trial and any hit on an opponent counting towards a score. The tagged opponent wouldn't be removed but detained instead, re-joining the trial after 20 seconds. Consecutive kills on the same opponent would not count, thus forcing Calf to switch between targets. In essence, he would fight till he was defeated or managed to tag all three opponents at least once in the skirmish. Should he eventually fall, he would be scored on the number of 'kills' he managed to accrue in his attempt. With all the trials and their masters accounted for in the gazebo, all that was left was for Calf to seek them out and begin his Final Rites.

⯁⯁⯁

Moments before the Final Rites...

All was quiet at the gazebo as the masters awaited the prince’s arrival. The Head of Craft had meant for the gazebo to be the crossroads for the same reasons Calf would arrive to later in his trial. By now the masters had been idling for the past hour inside the triple film cast around the gazebo. The outer and innermost layers of film would project a predetermined image outward, making it possible to hide the presence of the masters from anyone looking into the gazebo. The middle layer was a meter from each of the projection films and it housed a suggestion that would redirect anyone who breached it back in the direction they came from. These layers of film were meant to make the first part of the trial more challenging, requiring Calf to consciously seek out the gazebo as the solution for the first part of the riddle.

The gazebo was built to switch between containing or projecting the voices of its occupants as necessary, so their conversations wouldn't give them away. The mode could be deciphered from the appearance of the vents at the top so this could also be a clue should the candidate inspect the gazebo before considering other 'Crossroads'. All in all, Calf would have enough clues to arrive here if no one interfered, and despite knowing better, the Head Archivist still hoped no one would...