“Ah, a newcomer.” A raspy voice said from above. What looked like a floating white bed sheet descended just in front of them, pink and red threads woven into a flowery pattern near the bottom and a simplistic face near the top. Two pink circles for eyes and a curved red line for a mouth that blinked between different formations as the sheet spoke, with no in-betweens of the different orientations. The mouth rapidly swapped between differently shaped ovals as they spoke, then settled into a curved line when they waited for a response. “Welcome to the palace of potential. Here your power will be determined, and you will be given your official ranking according to the GNRS.”

“GNRS?” Y’talla asked.

“Gilded Night Ranking System.” The sheet explained. “The floors are ranked in the same way, and anyone within 1-2 deviations of the floor’s own ranking should be able to clear it with a reasonable amount of effort. If you’ll line up behind that young woman over there,” The sheet pointed at a teenager with sandy blonde hair and the black and gold outfit of a Gilded Night practitioner, “you will receive a number for today’s ranking.”

“What’s the number for?” Y’talla asked again before Elach could.

“To easily identify you to the overseers if you should need medical attention or otherwise.” The sheet gestured at the short line once more. “The ranking begins in twenty short minutes, if you would.”

“Thanks.” Elach said with a quick nod. “Are the rankings anything like a bonding trial?”

The sheet rustled loudly, and Elach tilted his head. Were they laughing?

“No, no, nowhere near that simple.” The sheet rustled once more, then seemed to collect themselves. “You’ll have to prove yourself in a series of tests designed to showcase your individual properties that come together for your GNRS ranking. A bonding trial is akin to a meet and greet, whereas this is the real event.”

Elach kept his face neutral, and when Y’talla went to correct the sheet on what he’d gone through at Resthollow, he tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention and shook his head. It wasn’t worth getting worked up over. She grumbled and crossed her arms but relented. The sheet nodded goodbye and floated along, leaving the group to fall in line as Y’talla muttered some unpleasant things under her breath.

“Language, young lady.” Elach joked, tapping Y’talla on the head with his knuckles. She let out a startled yelp and put her hands on her head, looking at Elach with annoyance and surprise. “Don’t look at me like that. There are children here who could be tainted by your foul words.”

Flow cackled and let out a tirade of heavy notes that left Elach dumbfounded and Y’talla blushing.

“Language.” Elach and Y’talla said in unison, and Flow’s cackles only grew.

“Fowl language.” Y’talla giggled, gently elbowing Elach in the side. He groaned and mussed up her hair, which only made her giggle harder. Which left Elach to deal with two laughing manifestations in the middle of a hall full of children. The poor girl he was standing behind looked over her shoulder with severe anxiety written all over her face, then quickly turned around and started shaking. His mouth became a taut line, and apparently Flow and Y’talla shared his feelings through their link, because they stopped almost instantly.

“Oh. Um, sorry.” Y’talla said sheepishly. “Not the place. We’ll keep quiet.”

Flow echoed the sentiment, then bowed their head to the girl in front of them. She snuck another look over her shoulder, and the shaking went down a little, but it didn’t stop.

The line progressed smoothly over the next few minutes, and soon enough Elach was given a slate to place his hand on and a number to wear on his shoulder. Y’talla and Flow were registered as his companions thanks to Hoalt, so they were given the same number he was. Flow’s was small enough to fit on them without any alterations, and as Elach looked around, he noticed a few manifestations along with the students.

“I thought everyone in here had a bond with Hoalt.” Elach said as he stepped to the side to let a short boy get his number. “But if there are manifestations and Issi beasts here, then that isn’t true.”

Y’talla shook her head. “If you reached out to feel their Issi, you’d know that barely any of them are bonded to Hoalt. Remember what I said about bonding to something way stronger than you are?” She gestured at the room. “Hoalt’s the perfect fit for ‘too strong’ in this place.”

“So Hoalt’s stronger than Glasrime?”

Y’talla thought for a moment, then shrugged. “I know exactly as much as you do on how strong those two are. But they can’t be as strong as your original patron, since we’ve seen some people that can handle bonds with them.”

“Glasrime bonded with newborns.” Elach pointed out. “And unless I’m really misunderstanding all this, that should be a huge power gap.”

“Maybe Hoalt and Glasrime found a way to deal with all that stuff if they can see the kids all the time?” Y’talla shrugged. “Does it really matter? You aren’t going to be bonding either of them.”

“Fair point.” Elach conceded. “I was just curious.”

“Hollow’s out there somewhere waiting for you, so don’t go looking at any other patrons while she’s bondless.” Y’talla chided. “You gave her your word, Elach. And that means a lot to us manifestations.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.” Elach responded with a smile. “I owe her, Flow, and Gilt my life. If all it takes to pay that back is a bond, then I’ll pay a hundred times over.”

“Good.” Y’talla said with a satisfied nod. “She trusts you.”

Flow added their own melodies to the conversation, and Elach nodded in agreement.

“Hollow’s as much bonded to me as you are, buddy. We just haven’t gotten to the Issi part of it yet.” Elach stroked Flow’s neck as they bent down. “Maybe after we deal with this we can go find her.”

“Practitioners!” The sheet’s voice boomed. Elach turned to see them floating above a raised platform near a set of double doors. “The first of many ranking assessments will take place for the next twelve hours. If you need to retreat for a meal or a nap, simply raise both hands in the air with open palms and request assistance. You will be teleported out of the assessment, and can continue after you’ve filled your body’s needs. Be aware that there are zones in the assessment where leisurely teleportation is not available, but you will be given ample warning when you cross into one. Hold all of your questions, since the rules will be made obvious the moment you go through to the assessment grounds. You have five minutes until the assessment starts!”

The doors creaked open behind the sheet and a wind blew in, billowing them out and confirming that there was nothing under the fabric. “The Emperor wishes you luck and success! Make yourselves proud!”

Elach stepped forward without hurry, Y’talla nipping at his heels with Flow perched on her shoulder. They turned their head and sang a question, making Elach follow their line of sight. It wasn’t hard to see what Flow was commenting on; most of the practitioners had yet to move. They were huddled around their teachers and mentors while speaking in hushed tones, shooting glances out at all the others as if they were the greatest threat they’d ever known. The few that walked with Elach were the older ones that he hadn’t seen in groups, some of them sporting hardened expressions while others were aloof and uncaring. He hadn’t thought this was a competition, but from reading the room, Elach suspected it wasn’t as cooperative as he’d hoped.

The waiting room was just that; a large, empty room with numbered doors littering the curved walls. Elach looked around for his own number, eventually turning back to the way he’d come in and finding his door placed right next to the entrance.

“More spatial manipulation?” Elach mused, stepping towards the door and placing his hand on a white metal place bolted on it’s right side. Nothing happened until Y’talla leaned in close to see what Elach was doing, rubbing against his arm as understanding shot through his mind.

“Yeep!” Y’talla jumped back, looking around as if someone had just tapped her on the shoulder. “I really don’t like that feeling.”

“It was sort of unpleasant.” Elach agreed. “At least we know what to do now.”

The goal for this part of the ranking was to reach the end of a fairly long obstacle course. From the quick overhead view he’d gotten, Elach surmised it wasn’t so much about agility or the like, but how long he could go before he ran out of Issi. And how he continued on after he was empty.

The next four minutes and change passed slowly, the rest of the kids funneling in mostly in the last thirty seconds before the time limit was up. The sheet walked through the door just as it closed, floating to the middle of the room and clapping their hands twice to draw everyone’s attention.

“I’m aware that this is an important moment in your lives, but try not to let that thought get the best of you. The Gilded Night does not care if you succeed on your first try or your fifth, just that you eventually succeed. Remember that before you push yourselves too hard and risk permanent damage.” The sheet scanned the room, lingering for a moment on everyone that didn’t seem to fit the description of a nervous teenage practitioner. “For those of you who are not beginning your journey with us, I ask that you do not provide aid or obstruction. Due to how the floors of the pillar function you are forced to walk the same path as those a fifth of your skill and power, but please do not take it out on them.”

Elach rolled his eyes. Who’d be enough of an ass to screw with some kid’s first real challenge as a practitioner? Though the fact that the sheet had to mention it at all probably meant someone had done exactly that before.

“You have twelve hours. Begin!”

Scalding winds blew in from where the door had been moments ago, carrying sand that scraped Elach’s skin and irritated his eyes from the get-go. He rubbed his hands over his eyes as he muttered in annoyance, feeling Y’talla push up against him and feeling Flow shuffle on his shoulder to slightly block the wind.

“Can you get us out of here?” Y’talla asked, slightly raising her voice to speak over the winds.

“Give me a…” Elach said, then bristled as Issi swelled somewhere off to his right. It felt cold and slick, yet sharp and deadly. He chained himself off to the side and wrapped an arm around Y’talla as he turned his head and came face to icicle with rapidly approaching death. He pulled them off the platform and the course in general, sand crunching and spraying under his feet as he skidded along the surface.

A river flowed down off the starting platform and down towards Elach, freezing over almost as quickly as it came, bringing along a practitioner whose manifestation didn’t look anything like any of the three Glasrime bonded practitioners Elach knew. They were a gaunt young woman, cheeks hollow and limbs a little too long for her body, dressed in a robe that clung to her body and accentuated her skeletal frame. Her manifestation, however, was omnipresent; icicles sprouted through her skin all along her arms like the ridges on the back of a lizard, up the side of her face like piercings, and along her forehead like a crown stitched into flesh. She stomped down through the ice, shards flying up and being snatched by her Issi, whirling around her for both protection and offence. Elach caught a peek at her back as she moved, more icicle spines protruding through her robe and thrumming with Issi.

“You’re not going anywhere, you promised tomorrows… bastard?” She looked down her nose at Elach, then at Y’talla, and raised an eyebrow. “How’d you manage to change the way you look so quickly?”