The room beyond the 8th door was rather small, and more dimly lit than the rest of the Sanctuary I’d explored. In the center, there was a small raised platform.

[Trial of Discipline]

[For this trial, you must stay still and silent for the entire time limit, no matter what happens.]

[The test will begin once you proceed to the center platform. If you leave the platform or utter a single sound before the trial is over, you will fail.]

[Time limit: 2 hours.]

I shrugged, and went to the raised portion of the room, and sat down. The moment I entered it, the 2 hour timer appeared.

For about the first five minutes, nothing happened. Then, traps started coming out of the walls—fire blasters, buzz saws, lots of nasty looking stuff.

It was all illusions, though. It all passed through me harmlessly. This went on for about another ten minutes, and after the first couple, I simply closed my eyes.

My surroundings went quiet, and I reopened my eyes—and saw the small pillar in front of me. I appeared to be off of it, but I could also see the timer was still going. I shut my eyes again for a few seconds, and when I reopened them, I was back on the pillar. Of course, I had never left it.

Some more time passed without anything happening. Time to stew over what could happen next. Mostly, I didn't bother to. Soon enough, a great rumbling started. I had never experienced an earthquake—the place I had lived on Earth was known for hurricanes, not earthquakes—but I had to think that this was very like being in the thick of one.

The room around me started appearing to crack and break apart. In another minute, it shattered, revealing all around me a long drop into the lava sea of Magnos. I calmly shut my eyes again. I felt myself drop, and I couldn't quite put out of my mind an imagined picture of my dropping into the lava.

Then in another moment, the sensation stopped and the room returned to normal. The timer, still displayed, was just passing the 1:10:00 remaining mark.

"I told you you weren't ready to come here," said a voice...the voice of the mysterious wolf man who had ambushed and attacked me on the 7th Floor. The trial is accessing my memories somehow?

I was about to say something like "Yeah, and look how well I've done with it!" But I remembered just in time that not leaving the platform wasn't the trial's only requirement—I wasn't allowed to speak or otherwise make noise either.

After that taunt failed to work, there was silence for quite some time more...but once the trial entered the second hour, I started hearing voices from people I'd known on Earth. I closed my eyes and resisted...

", please wake up. They're going to pull the plug tomorrow. It's now or never, please don't leave me..."

My heart caught in my throat for a moment. Mother?! My eyes involuntarily shot open—I was still in the small room, and it was still featureless save for the pillar/platform I was sitting on. I closed and reopened my eyes a few times, just in case. Okay, this trial's getting over the line. That was a dick move you know!

I thought it at the Sanctuary...and the shock and being answered almost caused me to fall over and fail. The voice sounded in my head, but it still felt like they were speaking, not thinking at me. "Oh, I've barely even gotten started. I gotta say, it may not be saying much, but your mind is much more interesting than the usual sort to challenge the Fire Sanctuary."

Its voice was squeaky, echoing, and entirely grating. It was in my head.

It was in my head!

GET OUT! GET OUT OF ME YOU BASTARD! THIS TRIAL IS WAY OVER THE LINE!

"Certainly—just leave the pedestal."

Oh you have GOT to be kidding me. I didn't sign up for my mind to be invaded! This goes way beyond a test!

"Wrong. As much as I'd LOVE to go beyond testing you, that's strictly forbidden by the Fire Sanctuary, not to mention the Tower Itself. And anyway, I'm not in your head as in like a parasite. See, look!"

A series of violet embers manifested right in front of my face. In another moment, they arranged into a vaguely human shape. "I'm right here!" Now the voice was coming both from in my head and from this thing. "Go ahead and use Identify if you don't believe me."

Fire Sanctuary Denizen

Wisp Emperor (BOSS Monster V)

"There, you see? I'm basically a god among Will-O-Wisps, as your species of human calls them. I didn't burrow into your mind—I just busted it open harder than Fat Man busted open Nagasaki! Not to mention with much more artistry. Oh, what I could do to you if I wasn't restricted...

No worries though. There's PLENTY I can do to you even though I am restricted. And poking around your brain has given me a particularly wonderful idea. A little concept hiding away that you came across that once fascinated and horrified you, called 'Mu Training.' "

Oh fuck. Oh FUCK.

"I think it's quite thematically appropriate for this trial, don't you?" I didn't disagree, to the point of thinking it was rather ironic, but I wasn't about to tell him that.

“So, in your memory of that game, I believe it was the legs that were the first to go, right?” And no sooner had he said it than it was done. It wasn’t as though he’d cut them off. There wasn’t any pain. It was as though I’d been a paraplegic for years.

I gave no response. If he was following the script that he said he was, the next thing he’d do was to take me from para to quadriplegic. “You should thank me, silly mortal. After all, you can’t fail by leaving the circle now, hee hee hee!”

I glared at them for a short while longer. “Still, I have just as much reason to thank you, I suppose. After all, I haven’t been able to take it this far in millennia. It’s a pity that you have to be such a statue for your part, because otherwise I’ve hardly ever had such fun!”

After a few more seconds, it looked pouty. “You still think you’re tough, huh. Well as impressive as that is, if you think that glare of yours is disarming, well...

And there it was. I couldn’t feel my arms anymore either. I was getting more and more disturbed, and more and more desperate not to show it.

It seemed I was failing. “What’s wrong, getting desperate? Why not try closing your eyes to all my illusions again? Better yet, let ME help you out with that! Hee hee hee!”

I managed one last glance at the timer before they took away my sight. It was just about to pass 40 minutes to go.

“Oh wait, I was supposed to take your ears first. Whoops. Well really, I don’t think I want to. I have a much more fun idea.”

Immediately I was assaulted with an incredible variety of loud noises. On top of everything else, it was extremely unpleasant. Still, I gritted my teeth again and endured the unholy cacophony. In fact I hoped—while doing my best not to consciously think about the hope—that this would go on for quite a while. After all, the longer this went on, the more of the remaining time would be eaten away without something worse happening.

And go on and on it did. In fact, it went on so long that I was questioning how much time could be left. Eventually, it stopped, but I hadn’t returned to feeling as though I had arms and legs.

“Still haven’t cried out, eh? I’m getting bored. What more can I even take from you...? I’m not allowed to take total possession of your mind, and I can tell you’ve guessed that I’m also not allowed to give you pain. Well, if I can’t give you more sensations, I’ll just take them away instead!”

I no longer felt the platform. I couldn’t move my head, or feel my body from the neck down. I was floating in a true void of nothingness. Even the thing’s voice had stopped. I could have been like that for five seconds or an eternity for all I knew.

Then all at once, it stopped. My body felt normal. I opened my eyes. The room was as though the Wisp Emperor had never been there. The timer notification no longer displayed a timer, instead:

[Trial of Discipline: PASS]