The rest of the labyrinth was even worse. We spent two hours getting through it. Snakes, bats, locusts, a huge red dog with horns, more traps, guards, and a dozen other equally annoying obstacles sat in our way. After hours of effort though, we managed to get past them all, and we finally trekked into a huge chamber where we didn't see anything except...a person. A tall man standing in the middle of the room stoicly, looking pretty much completely unbothered by our presence. Once he noticed us, his eyes slid over to pin us in place where we stood.

He raised an eyebrow. "Visitors? That's a novelty. I'm surprised he managed to trick you into coming down here. The last few he sent died. Once they stopped showing up I assumed word had gotten around." He looked over his shoulder at a stone pedestal in the middle of the room. On the pedestal sat a single rolled up piece of paper with a worn red ribbon tied around it in a bow. "I'm not going to let you have it. I'd prefer not to kill you both, so you should just leave. I can still let you go if you turn around now."

I blinked. I recognized that voice. He wasn't making loud insane proclamations or wearing a bunny mask, but I'd heard that voice more than once now. Spruce Bunny, or rather, this was Abel Castleton...somehow. I cocked my head. "How are you here? We were told you left. We even saw you in G district proper. You were the one who sent us here. Is there a back way into this place or something?" For the life of me I couldn't figure out what was going on here, why he was down here with us.

Abel shook his head. "I assume you mean the original. This isn't really me. It's a phantasmal guardian. These are expensive to have made. It's a type of enchantment that anchors a copy of a person to a location. I only exist within this room, but because of the enchantment I'd as good as real in here. The original left me to guard this place to make sure my brother didn't get this back." His voice was cold and flat, barely inflected at all, and it shocked me how different he was from the rabbit masked man we had met at the sausage shop.

That didn't tell me any more than the back entrance would have though. Why would Abel be keeping something from his brother? I'd thought there were on good terms, this was a lot of trouble to go through to keep a piece of paper away from your family. I didn't have a chance at guessing any of it, so I figured I would ask. At the very least I could ask about what the hell the paper was. "He did send us, though he didn't give us much choice or warning. He wanted us to get something but didn't say what. I take it that paper is the target? What is it?"

He shook his head in exasperation. "No one ever takes Cicero seriously until it's too late. He tries hard to make sure that bad habit continues. I'm, not surprised he tricked you into this. It's his style." He paused, looking pensive. "I suppose I can tell you though, what the paper is. I won't be letting you have it anyway so a bit of a clue isn't going to cause much problem. The answer isn't complicated. It's the deed. When we bought this place from the last owners we signed for it together. Sadly, that means shared ownership, which means he can sell it if he so chooses."

That...didn't fit with the narrative Cicero was giving us, but then again, he'd proven himself to be pretty untrustworthy. Callie spoke up. "Why? Why do any of this? It's been so much trouble for no real reason, and now he's trying to get the deed? For what? Is he going to sell the circus? Would that even be viable at this point? Who knows if everyone would be willing to calm down and pull back a bit on fighting until this was over."

Abel shot her a cheerful smile, the first real expression I'd seen on him at this point. "I imagine he's facing pressure. Despite his mercenary nature, Cicero DOES care about his subordinates. I wouldn't have left him in charge if he didn't. I just made sure to leave this here, because I know my brother's habits. He's extremely intelligent, but also something of a coward. He'll fold if he thinks the situation is beyond saving, and I didn't want that to be an option.If he wants to sell this place he needs to come convince me to retrieve it. No one else at G rank should be able to manage it."

I sighed deeply, not having any other questions. "Alright. Fine, so what's the test here? We playing checkers with you?" I was pretty sure it was a combat oriented test, but I wasn't willing to risk an assumption. Asking might be repetitive to some who knew what was at stake and would have wanted to jump in, but I'd never been one to take information for granted. Trust but verify, that was my personal philosophy. Despite that though, I was pretty sure this wasn't going to be a game of chess, at least not like anything I'd played before.

Abel chuckled. "Oh no. I'd never set up a test like that. If you want to get past me, you do it like an Ascendant should. Stepping over my corpse. Since you're so young I'll even let you come at me together. If you can beat me you keep the deed. But just so you know this is a very slim chance, I only even offer because I actually like you. Shocking I know, but if my other self got you in you must be worth knowing. Not exactly a perfect method of determining suitability, but I'm a fake in a hole so I can't exactly be choosy. Now, as I said, you can both come at me together or you can just lose."

Which was...deeply troubling. I knew what his power was, but not how it worked. Presumably the version of him from outside would have either been stronger or convinced him to stand down because they were the same person. If he was this convinced he shouldn't be able to lose to someone his own rank though, he must be terrifying. Which brought up one more question I had to ask before we started. "What was stopping some F ranker from tearing this place down and just taking the deed?"

Abel smirked. "You haven't been Ascendants long have you? Despite a qualitative difference in power, lower ranked Ascendants have plenty of ways to limit higher rankers from getting their hands on things. They can't use any of those interdictions you see on some lands of legacy or dungeons that keep out powerful warriors, but the weak have their own methods of self protection." For the first time since we had started talking to the image of Abel, he seemed genuinely excited to share. Not just mocking or sarcastic, but thrilled to tell us all about this interesting thing he knew.

He gestured around us to the labyrinth. "Mad Madigan, who built this maze for me, is well known for creating vaults that can keep out higher ranking Ascendants. This whole place is a single, delicate spatial construct. It's precisely calculated to contain certain tolerances of Impact. Too much dimensional weight cracks the foundation, and the whole thing disintegrates into the void, destroying everything inside forever. Of course, building spatial constructs on the edge of tipping into the void is INSANE hence the Mad part of his moniker, but before he accidentally got swallowed by a void beast, Mad Madigan was considered a prodigy at spatial arts, so his constructions are all actually very stable."

That opened up lots more questions, and made me extremely nervous as to what would happen if we somehow managed to crack the space in this place some other way besides being F rank. I briefly felt sick as I considered that WISHES might be able to do something like that, and remembered the thirty six Impact I'd spent on Callie's trap skill in here. I wasn't sure how close we had come to both dying, but at the very least we'd gotten lucky enough to survive. I shook off the horrible image. "Alright, fine, if we need to beat you to pass we'll do it."

I reached down and put a hand around Callie's waist, triggering Flurry of Blows again. As I'd confirmed earlier, the change to that subskill had been perfected, so it didn't even hurt when I flooded the speed boost into my girlfriend. Callie, feeling the effect take hold, flicked out a hand and sent a series of razor shard shadow blades in at Abel from multiple directions. The enhanced Perception she was so proud of let her see in perfect detail where to attack, exactly how to aim and from what angles she could stab down to prevent him from blocking those hits. She executed the most flawless attack I had ever seen, all her Might driving those blades into the exact right positions, since he was just a copy and she didn't need to worry about killing him.

None of them touched him. Not a single piece of his clothing got so much as scratched. Her blades were so fast, so deadly, I'd expected anything he did to avoid them to be a blur. I expected him to dart around like a maniac and maybe dodge a few and get cut a couple times in the process. I didn't actually think that would be enough to finish him off, but I had assumed it would be enough to do SOMETHING. I'd been wrong. The blades came down, and he watched them placidly, an expression of mild interest on his face. Then he just...moved.

It wasn't some kind of superior dodge or anything like that, he didn't contort himself. He moved calmly and slowly, unhurried, and my head HURT watching it. The space around him warped, and his casual, unhurried movements were just more than they should have been. They crossed more distance than was possible. He made a series of lazy, unconcerned shuffles side to side, and every single one of those shadow blades just flowed right by. He watched them go, eyes following them as he moved, and somehow the break in his movements opened up a gap between the strikes where none had been before.

We just stared at him, terrified, as he smiled gently over at us. "Well, that was certainly a lovely effort. I'm impressed. That level of attack was much more than I expected from a Perception build. That was nearly a five hundred Might strike. Good instincts going for piercing damage too. I assume you used some sort of speed boosting skill. Piercing lends well to that kind of thing, more concentration means more bang for your buck. Meta Skills like that are rare at G rank. You must be very successful. Mind if I ask where it is you came from?"

I swallowed hard, just staring at the absolute monster in front of us. I had no clue what we could do here. That had been, as he mentioned, a nearly five hundred Might strike. Callie's one hundred fifty seven points of Might amplified three times for the purpose of speed, maximized by penetrating damage. We'd just thrown Might similar to what Cark was throwing around at this guy, and he'd barely even needed to move. "We're from the Unity. The Ascendant Academy." No reason not to be polite.

He cocked his head. "How...interesting. We don't get many of you down here. Tell you what. Why don't we make this interesting. If Cicero is so desperate to get the deed that he's chucking Academy geniuses down here without worrying what might happen to him, something big must be going on. Still, I can't just give you the deed, it goes against my purpose. You have to pass the trial to get the deed. Still ,you seem like interesting kids." He bit his lip, staring up at the ceiling in contemplation.

He took his time speaking, as if carefully choosing his words. "I've been stuck in this hole for years, and this is probably my best chance to get out, so I'm willing to talk terms. I'll let you make three rules for the fight. No limiting my power or Skill usage, but physical limitations are in play. However. If you fight me as is, you have to last for two minutes, and the number increases by two for every rule you add." He grinned savagely. "Take your time deciding. Even if I'll be fading soon, I want to have some fun before I go." Somehow. I didn't think that would be a problem. I also didn't think we would be sharing in his joy.