Tyr sneezed with enough force to shake his whole body. An uncomfortable and almost painful expulsion of impurities in his sinus'. Except there was no dust or detritus to be found in this place. Everything was 'fake', with the only real parts of it being Ayla and Tyr themselves.

Real... He thought to himself, an idea blossoming in his mind.

“Sorry, but I'm really not a fan of waiting to die. Is there any way you could get on with it?” Ayla asked, voice shaking. Enough time had passed with him standing over her that she began to feel some reticence over the self imposed execution.

Tyr answered, though not in the way that she expected. There were three things that were real in this place, not two. He felt three life forces. They'd spent so much time on the outskirts of the clearing that the faint signature of the third was all but unknown to him. But he knew now. Bringing his hammer down in a two handed swing to shatter the chest full of gold some three feet beside him. It erupted in a pile of abuse flesh, cracking and squealing. Ayla pulled back, sliding across the ground courtesy of her earth magic as she watched Tyr smash the chest to bits. Ending it all with a bright gout of crimson fire, bathing it until all that was left was ash and twisted bone.

[Quest complete! Congratulations! You've successfully passed the trial of restraint!]

“What are you doing!?” She cried. “What is that thing...?”

Tyr ensured that thing thing inside that chest was dead. A mimic. “I've been so stupid. So foolish. These tests are configured to me and me alone. I mean no offense, but even if you caused me a great deal of agony, I'd kill you. Eventually, and it'd be easy. Too easy to be part of a trial designed to be a challenge to me. I don't think this test had anything to do with killing, ultimately. It was a trick. I really am sorry for not seeing it for what it is...”

He'd caused her so much grief. Letting the reapers scythe hang over her head, and he'd been worthless in provided a true workaround for it. Not until now, at least.

“Exactly right!” The voice came again. The administrator making herself known after nearly a month of their sedentary lifestyle. “This trial was about judgment. Arachne are not monsters, they are humanoid lifeforms with mana and spira. No monster class being contains an equal balance of both! Frankly, even the youngest child of nim should understand that, you are near unparalleled in your idiocy!”

“...”

“...What would've happened if I had killed Ayla?” Tyr asked the voice.

“You would have been trapped here indeterminately until you were eventually tempted to open the chest and be devoured by the mimic. As you know, most mimics grow incredibly powerful, but only after you touch their lid and allow them to sense your life force!”

“Er... What's happening?” Ayla asked, eyes flitting about to identify a voice that she could hear just as well as he could.

Tyr waved his hand around, shaking his head to warn her off. “It's better not to ask. So? I've completed your trial, let us out. As for my reward, I'd like Ayla to be returned to her world.”

“Impossible.” The voice came. “This is outside of the cost associated with manifesting the reward for the first trial. Please try again.”

“So, what?” Tyr had felt a similar way once before. When that boy in Amistad had died in his arms as he railed against the cruel gods who refused aid. These things had power, should have a concept of right and wrong – but they actively chose not to use it. Like this was all a game to them. “You'll kill her?”

“Of course not.” The administrators voice was still cheery. Tyr hated it. “We will allow her to leave through any applicable rift. Current location says that the only local astral junctions leads to two dead worlds, and Hjemland-7! Again, you are an ignoramus! It is a shocking development that your sire did not smother you at birth! Ha ha!”

“What does that mean?” Ayla asked. “I am exceptionally confused. Who is this person? Is this a god?”

“Ah.” Tyr sighed, looking toward Ayla. “It means that the only world you can exist in, is my own. As in, I can take you back with me, but not back home. Isn't that right?” He asked the administrator.

“Correct, once again! Wow, you sure are smart! Haha! Just kidding. You are one of the dullest nephilim I've ever met! Note that she is free to stay among our facilities for as long as she'd like, but our cycle will not return to her own world for an... Calculating. Another eighteen thousand, four hundred and seven years! This is an estimate.”

“Oh...” Ayla pondered the information presented before shaking her head. Taking it all quite well, to be honest. Considering the disembodied voice, abduction, all of that... “That's fine.”

“It's not fine.” Tyr disagreed. “Take her home now!”

“Impossible. We cannot alter the cycle. This craft does not possess the applicable facilities to freely move between planes. All we do is ride etheric winds from location to location.”

“You suck.” Tyr spat, wishing this 'administrator' had a physical body so that he could beat it to death. This was beyond cruelty. He'd been given a choice, but Ayla hadn't. In a way, she was a slave to this fate of hers, certainly beyond her control. She looked toward him, oddly calm despite the rush of information.

“Is your world... I don't know... Nice? What's it like?”

Tyr pondered that for a moment, giving her a brief rundown of his own continent, and then the greater world as he understood it. They had everything, and he was pretty sure that demi-human classified monsters like arachne were welcome in Saorsa. As long as they were learned and could communicate, they weren't considered monsters. Nala was one such example of a person that could shift their guise to travel throughout the known world. Not even the greatest archmage could see through shape shifting. Not humans, at least, and they were ultimately the only threat to her well-being.

“Can I come with you?” She asked. “I'll admit, this is shocking and not altogether welcome, but like I've said. I have no great thing waiting for me back home. It's probably already been... How long has it been?”

This time, the administrator answered.

“Abraxxis-7 has seen one thousand, three hundreds, ninety two years, one hundreds and forty three days, six hours. Since your departure. This is an estimate.”

“Good gods...” Tyr groaned. “I'm really sorry.”

“You shouldn't be.” She replied. “Thanks for not killing me. Obviously you had no part in what happened to me, maybe this is a good thing. It is boring, you know? My job, I'd always wished I was chosen for something else. This might be it.”

“Yes.” He answered her original question. “You can come with me. Remain in human form and search out a chimera... No... Give me a second.” Tyr could send her to Nala, but first off – Ayla would be stuck in an alien world. Furthermore, he had no idea where to find the manticore. Somewhere to the east of the span – but she could be anywhere by now. Time passed differently in an astral space, and he was technically inside two. Thankfully, he had a map. A magic one, naturally. Because everything was magic and it was a convenient excuse to avoid unnecessary exposition. “Go here.” He said. Amistad, telling her to look for either an Iscari, Alex, or Brenn. If she could, to visit the Red Dragon and find Abaddon or Valkan. They were the only people he trusted not to become too suspicious. He'd have added Micah, but... Obvious reasons prevented that, she was a woman – after all.

“Wait... If you show up in my world, won't you end up basically killing a bunch of humans?” He asked. Ayla shrugged, unable to answer the question. “You know, because your uh... Olfactory thing?”

“Might I assist?” The administrator crowed. Her voice starting to get even more on Tyr's nerves. “Arachne pheromones are incompatible with the humans on your home world. They only work on baseline nim, none of which exist in Hjemland. All humans on your world are just a derivative, they are still nim, but declining. Another two millennia will need to pass before they fall complete into their own categorization as common hominids!”

“Do you know what that means?” Tyr asked Ayla. She shook her head, but it was enough. “Well, either way, go here and find one of those people. Wait for me. Or don't, you can honestly do whatever you want. You are free and I don't know if I'll ever be back. Again, I'm really sorry.”

“It's a fresh start.” Ayla smiled, bowing low at the waist. “Thank you.”

Before Tyr could respond, she was gone. “Where did she go?”

“Apologies, based on your cartography provided, we have sent her to the city known as Amistad to follow your wishes. We cannot recover her, should you change your mind.”

“That's...” Tyr shook his head. Better to focus up now, rather than get distracted by what was ultimately a good thing. He had no idea they could project beyond the astral space. Then again, he didn't know a lot of things, and this tower of theirs was full of mysteries. “Fine, let's move on.”

“Understood! Remember that reward can be collected at any time from your interface! Good luck!”

What came next was a whirlwind of trials. Each more convoluted and wholly out of expectation as the last. The second trial was spent teaching a gaggle of children. He passed that one, successfully harvesting a crop before the falling of winter – thereby ensuring their survival. The third was spent traveling several months walk through wild mountains and dense forests to deliver a beet, as in the vegetable, to a kingdom of goblins that declared him a national hero before he was yanked out of their world and sent back to the tower. The first was the trial of perception, the second of patience, and the third of perseverance. He'd crossed an entire continent overland through incessant storms.

Arid deserts, frigid mountain, swimming across a scalding hot inland sea before reaching his objective. A kingdom of goblins all dressed in glittering steel. Vast cities of stone and towers so high as to touch the clouds, making the city of glass and steel he'd seen in a time long ago a pale thing in comparison.

These were all, ultimately, rather easy. Once Tyr understood the basic concept, the goal was too literal to fail. He could give up, but he wouldn't. Couldn't.

The fourth trial was a bit more complicated. He was summoned to a series of floating islands and forced through a series of tasks given to him by diminutive creatures with the heads of buffalo and the bodies of squat men. They lived in the sky, traveling between the islands of their broken world on ships that sailed through the air rather than water. This was the trial of obedience, with a score of commanders demanding his attention to the most monotonous of tasks. At least, at the end of the day, he'd be able to claim that there were none better than he at waxing the deck of a ship. Forced to follow orders, and every time he complained the time he was supposed to spent there grew longer.

Fifth was the trial of tenacity. Wading through a field of thorny cacti, without his healing ability, traveling between obelisks. Touching them would heal him, stemming the bleeding and continuing on to the next. The entire time, the voice of the administrator begging him to quit. But he refused. Painfully, literally painfully, obvious that the whole point of the trial was not to quit. She called it determination, but it was all the same to him. Three weeks there and he was on to the sixth. Which was even stranger.

He was in a classroom. That's what it looked like, at least. A score of desks, and he was stuck there for what seemed like ages. Learning math and the history of a world that was not his own. Forced to write and answer all manner of questions pertaining to worthless things like 'factors' and 'quotients'. Eventually, he graduated. This was the trial of the scholar, which the administrator explained after was a unique combination of knowledge, humility, and the same patience trial he had already slogged through what seemed like an eternity ago.

A conglomerate of trials with a twist added to see if he'd make it to the end. And he did, like all the others. So deep into it was he, that he'd refused to fail. He hadn't gotten the best marks or grades, but Tyr was pleased with the result. Celebrating alongside his former classmates as they went on to become cogs in the machine. Or.... Something like that.

Seventh was not so easy as the others. The trial of discipline. He was a healer, given skills he hadn't previously known and forced to sit through a hundred failures. A 'surgeon'. People dead because he didn't consider one thing or another. Only passing because the point wasn't to save, only endure. In a world bereft of mana, spira, or anything else. He was married in this world, but the faces of every human he'd ever met were indistinct blurs. Even had a family, and children that he loved. All gone, but the administrator did as he asked. Making him forget, though she said she'd have done so for all the trials – regardless. It was not good to know the answers to a test others might take in the future.

The eighth trial was spent planting trees and watching them grow. The trial of life, but they all seemed like another exercise in patience to him. He was in a temple surrounded by bald monks that appeared as he did. Traveling a dying world and tending to each individual seed for years so as to see them grow and prosper. Healing the world and seeding the last in vast forests, scorched long ago be the depredations of mankind.

Nine was the trial of fear. Tyr was forced to sit through a vast array of simulated experiences. Drowned a hundred times in salty seas. Shocked and prodded. Forced to listen to a scornful father berate him time and time again. Growing from childhood to adulthood to confront the terrors of an uncaring world. Finally, he'd faced the void itself. None of which shook him, it all seemed so... Par for the course, if he couldn't say it any other way. Forced to watch his friends die, things that seemed so familiar. His family executed for crimes they couldn't have committed, and there was nothing to do to stop it.

Last was the tenth. The hardest, by far. Where he almost failed. Sitting through a highlight reel of his entire life laid in vivid imagery and burned into his mind. The trial of reflection, she called it. He felt the fear of the dead or dying, assaulted by the life he'd brought into being. Felt his father doubt and disappointment a dozen times over. Through all of it, the administrator offered a salve. To simply die and be gone, and he wanted to – but didn't. It wasn't all bad. There were parts. Astrid's warmth, Alex and all of her quirks. Constantly reassuring him. It gave him the chance to remember his mothers face. To live alongside her. In one branch of time, Tyr had watched her grow old and die. Reflection was to consider all possibilities and reflect on his failures.

If he'd been strong enough. His mother would be alive, and he'd lived that life as long as any other. Centuries of existence were a torment, but he endured. Seeing Luk, the unnamed goblins, and the mycelians about their business. His mother and father. One growing old and the other disappearing after a time.

One thing never changed throughout all of his experiences, and that was the theme of his 'father' and closest friends losing faith in him after a time. Jartor was not long for this world, whatever he did. Making him proud was impossible. A lesson in futility, and he accepted that as well. Tyr was Tyr, and he reflected on his inability to triumph. He was what he was. All he was left with was simply trying his best, and even if it wasn't good enough he was fine with it.

Every trial sought to show him something. Glimpses of who he was as a person. To fight and die was not the intent. Tyr had no fear or anxiety pertaining to that. Hence, he did not fight. There was no action to speak of. It showed him what he didn't want to see. He'd have welcome a battle, seeing the [Quest Completed!] after the last trial and coming out the other side near the point of madness. Before she fulfilled her promise. He forgot. To undergo a trial of ascendancy was to show the character developed over time, one possible development paths among money. It was not part of the trials to grow and prosper as a person, just to display and be found worthy – or not.

Prescience of the paths was not a gift, this facility had other influences on the body. It was not its job to make people stronger, it was to set their feet on a path. It was up to them to do the rest.