When I materialized in the next trial, everything felt different. My mind was sharper, I could hear better, it wasn't that I felt like I'd grown so much as my stats were more in tune with my body now. More a part of me. It was a tough feeling to explain, but definitely a pleasant one overall. Of course, it was also distracting, which is why I didn't notice the person standing in front of me.

"Oh shit!" I yelped, as I jumped nearly out of my skin. The guy across from me did the same, and I sighed in relief when I realized that he didn't seem hostile. Still, I eased a hand to my staff, looking suspiciously at the man in a strange yellow furred three piece suit with brown fur cuffs. His head had a flat topped brown fur hat with yellow ears poking out of it, and his eyes were feline and predatory, though they seemed more wary than aggressive at the moment.

He nodded to me. Blinking once in the time most people would have done so five or six times. "Hello." He said in a rough and slightly sibilant voice. "My name is Felix."

"I bet it is." I said as I slowly calmed down. "Can I...help you? Were you waiting for something? Wait, what are we even do-" And that was when the information for this particular trial dropped into my head. Trial number five, the trial of unity. The soul wasn't built to be solitary. While inner surety and a powerful will were needed to refine it, it was also necessary to form bonds with others. That was what the heart shackle was all about, after all.

The trial of unity wasn't a partner thing. It was a proxy war. All the remaining participants would be split up into fortresses. Each fortress would be given flags with numbers on them. Capturing a flag from the other team would reward soul refinement based on the recipient's level. I blinked at Felix. "Ah, just got it. Team one or team two?"

"Team two." He said succinctly. "Yourself?"

"Same." I said with a relieved breath. "You have any idea where the fortress is? I don't think sticking around out here in the wild will be a good idea. Someone is bound to try to pick off stragglers."

Felix nodded. "Lone prey is weakest." He agreed cheerfully. "Retreat to the den." He turned and headed in a seemingly random direction without really answering my question. Still, I figured following him would be a better idea than wandering off. I also wondered how he was here at all. I'd assumed that Fist God guy was the one who got the golden fragment last time. Was it Felix? Or did the arrivals get randomized. I could see other figures moving in the distance.

Something was going on with time in here for sure, because despite being like a day or two so far, I didn't need to sleep, or eat, and I couldn't feel my wishes refreshing for the day. Maybe time wasn't moving at all in here. In which case the temple could have screwed with our sense of it?

Regardless of what was happening, we made our way to fortress two without much delay, arriving at the gate within about forty minutes. I kept my eyes peeled for enemies, but we made it safely. The fortress, as it turned out, was a massive stone structure with an ACTUAL drawbridge. "Hello the gate!" I bellowed. I'd always wanted to say that.

"Shane?" Squealed a happy, familiar voice. "You're on team two?" I laughed as Bethy poked her head out from the parapet. "This is gonna be awesome! Gabe ended up on team one I think, and I saw Benny and Jessie over there too! You've got me on your team though, and we're gonna totally crush them!"

"What about Callie?" I asked as the gate came down. I'd stepped out of the way with Felix. When it reached about halfway Bethy jumped off the parapet and landed on it, screaming with joy as she rode the falling gate the rest of the way down. When it thumped into the earth, she jumped off and sprinted over to us. I grinned. "I was about to come up there, you know?"

She shrugged happily. "This was faster." She turned to Felix with a big smile. "Hi I'm-" Her eyes went wide. "KITTY!" I cursed and hurled myself forward to catch her before she tackled him, but I was too slow, even in here. She wrapped her arms around the yellow suited man, cackling in glee, and I pinched the bridge of my nose in amused frustration.

"Well I think everyone saw THAT coming." Drawled the most beautiful voice I'd ever heard in my life. I turned to find my girlfriend giggling as she leaned against the open parapet.

"Cal." I grinned at her. Stepping forward, I swept her up into a tight hug. She just laughed, burying her face in my neck, and we held each other for a while. As much as it had only been a short time since I'd seen her, it felt like much longer. Between the forest and the maze, time had sort of lost all meaning, but I'd changed quite a bit since we'd last been together. Just because I was fine without her didn't mean I wasn't happy to see her.

She laughed and held onto me until I put her down. There was something different about her. She seemed relaxed and at peace in a way she hadn't before. Having gone through the same thing myself I could easily recognize the signs. "You hit yellow didn't you?"

"Yup. You too?" I'd gone through several waves of armors at a hundred percent, unable to advance because of my shackle, so catching up didn't seem too weird. At my nod she grinned. "I also progressed my Path a bit. I've been work on it since my enlightenment after the Glade. It's actually progressed to a usable extent. Really helped me get through the castle. Those armor suits were sturdy."

Callie had way more Might than me, but those things had definitely been durable as hell. I'd have figured she'd have more trouble with them. Her Path must be pretty combat applicable. I was really looking forward to seeing it. Turning to Bethy, I asked. "So...do we have any details about how this is supposed to go?" Having been here longer I was hopeful she might have a better grasp on what was happening.

The information download covered the very basics, but the actual context of the trial was something we'd need to learn on the fly. She nodded. "Yeah, a bit. You know about the flags, but it seems like this is going to be a longer trial than the others. The general consensus is that there will PROBABLY be seven of them. The last three are probably going to take a bit longer, because the weaklings have been eliminated and we're down to serious contenders."

Between the forest and the maze, I could see how lots of people would have given up. There was an option to just leave if you couldn't take it, though I knew it wasn't something I'd ever exercise. If this was going to be a long drawn out battle some of the details made sense. If there was just one flag it would be kind of pointless. It sounded like we might be attacking each fortress in waves.

Felix, who had extricated himself from Bethy's vise like grip, headed through the draw bridge, and I laughed and grabbed Callie's hand. "He's got the right idea, we really should go inside." Even at the actual entrance to the second fortress we were making targets of ourselves sitting around like this. "Anyway, Bethy, tell us about our teammates. Anyone we know in here?"

She shrugged. "I don't know who you know. We got the broody guy from the platform, the one whose grandpa is a pope. Also a stabby guy who seems kind of crazy, and a punchy guy who doesn't talk much. He seems pretty strong though. I think at least two of them are Masters." I exhaled in relief. Masters on our team were bound to make things easier. Especially if that punchy guy was the Adrian person Vinnie and Simon mentioned. Speaking of whom...

"I was actually wondering if two friends of mine came through." I said brightly. "One of them is a kind of stuck up elf guy? And the other one is short and super buff with a goatee."

Bethy made a thoughtful sound. "They do sound familiar. I'm not sure if I saw them here or in one of the trials though. Most people were avoiding me except the really strong ones. I might have gotten a little bitey during the first trial and I think I scared some people off." She sounded pretty disappointed, and I remembered how hard she worked to control her vampire side better.

Callie pulled away from me, walking over to throw an arm around the diminutive vampiress. "Their loss. You're awesome, and having you on our team is going to be amazing. Everyone else better watch out, or they won't make it past round five. Now, why don't you show us around this place."

Sufficiently distracted from her woes, Bethy sprang into action dragging Callie up a set of stone steps to show her around the fortress. I nodded to Felix, who had been standing in the shadow of a nearby wall. "Sorry about her. She's a sweetheart, just...enthusiastic." I would have explained more about Bethy, but before I had a chance there was a shudder in the ground beneath us and the sky went black.

A yellow light blazed up inside the fortress, coming from a bell tower like structure in the middle, where I could see a glowing golden flag with a big number two on it. "Incoming!" Bellowed someone out of sight of me. "We have a wave starting. Defenders to the walls, anyone who wants to try their hand at flag snatching I'd get the hell out there before we're swarmed."

My eyes widening, I bent my legs and jumped clear up to the walls. I didn't have time for stairs. I bolted in the direction Callie and Bethy had gone, finding them pretty quickly. "Cal." I said, coming into view of my girlfriend. "Can you carry us out past the attackers once they arrive? If we can leapfrog them we can hit their fortress with a light guard."

She glanced out over the wall, sidestepping an arrow as she peeked from behind a crenellation. I followed her lead, noting the massive crowd of Ascendants. Counting them off, I could see hundreds of them just outside. Including the defenders on the other side and our own teammates, there must be almost a thousand of us left in this round. I wish I'd taken the time to find out how many there had been to start. I spotted Abel and Mel out among the crowd, as well as Nat, Valk, and Nathaniel, the pope spawn kid that had been hitting on my sister. I made a mental not to take him out early if I got a chance, just because he had a hateable face.

Callie nodded. "I can jump us past them. They're only less than a mile thick, that's within my range. You'll have to be ready to get us moving when we land though. I'm going to be reeling from the effort." Once she got my agreement, she turned to watch the attackers pile in. "Bethy." She said over her shoulder. "You coming with us on this raid?"

The vampire shook her head. "Nah, I think I'll go out and fight." She winked at us, then gestured down to her shadow. "In fact, I think I'll let my cats out to play, they've been cooped up since they got here." Her eyes gleamed a bloody red as she grinned toothily down at the crowd of attackers. "Donuts, Poptarts...go for a walk." The last thing I saw as Callie pulled me into her shadow was the two Night Pride being unleashed on the horde of challengers. Sucked to be them.