by Bob Dattolo
The test faded and I passed through and looked into the cone in the floor. The moving things appear to be blades, although I can’t tell if they’re sharp or not. The place reeks of blood and I can see it in places, telling me people may not have made it through.
How to do it, though?
Crap, noise behind me lets me see two others coming into the room. They’re staying away from each other, telling me that they’re not allies.
Dammit.
Okay, Maddie, how to get through? I don’t see an obvious way to avoid the moving blades. Once you hit the cone, you’re pretty much gonna start sliding. I don’t know how much traction there will be in there to move around or dodge.
You know what? Fuck it. Shielding went up around me and I picked the best-looking spot and jumped in. The cone extends down a solid 40 feet but isn’t anywhere near straight down. Yet I’m still moving like I’m on a slide.
With a blade coming right at me.
My shield takes it without a problem, and I get shoved to the side while still moving.
Another hits, pushing me the other way for a bit before releasing me.
Then another. Then another.
Then I’m down, standing in the remains of someone that either didn’t have strong enough shields, or maybe didn’t think to try that.
Oh, huh, “Sorry, Nolan. Hope it was quick.” No response from his torn-up corpse, so I left him behind, knowing that I’m leaving bloody footprints behind me. I gotta move before others catch up.
Six more tests and ten challenges pass before I find what I think is another hallway intersecting. I smell Samantha passing through, so I’m hoping it’s just one hallway coming in and not where I should be smelling more than just her.
That has me putting on speed, because I hear a dragon coming from that hallway. Not too close, but not far enough away to satisfy me. I’m not about to stay and see if it’s someone I know.
She’s not at the next test, although I smell her blood. Not a ton, but enough. I didn’t before now, so something happened here to cause it.
That test gets passed and there’s more of her blood on the other side, which has me taking flight to move quicker to find her.
Three more challenges go by, with the drops of her blood coming more frequent. Thicker.
Turning into the next room, I find her on the ground about 20 feet away. Maybe 100 feet after her, someone slumps to the ground, red flying from their neck as I pick up magic being done.
The person revealed there is Kaylee. She has the most satisfied smile on her face and confidence I’ve never seen from her before. She doesn’t see me as she says, “I hope you’re still alive, Samantha. I got something for you here.” She hefts her knife.
She’s soaked in blood. Drenched in it.
Then she sees me and cowers down, arms crossing, “Maddie?”
“What were you gonna do with Samantha, Kaylee?”
“Noth…nothing! I wasn’t going to do anything to her other than help her!”
“Bullshit, Maddie!”
“No, it’s the truth, I was going to help her!”
I can smell her scent waver, but it wasn’t an outright lie. She just skipped something, though. Pretty freaking heavily.
“You have to believe me! Please help me! I can’t make it through this without you!”
My heart breaks at hearing that, but seeing Samantha there and knowing she meant to kill her? “Keep moving, Kaylee. You’ve treated me like shit all year. Keep going. I’m not helping you this year.”
She turns away, but not before I see a change in her expression. She’s gone through the test before I reach Samantha, then gone entirely by the time I crouch.
What the fuck was all of that?
Samantha’s hurting. It looks like she took three or four swipes with a huge blade across the chest and upper arms.
She’s also awake, barely. She seems me immediately as I roll her over. The stench of fear overrides the agony that she’s in as she tries to fight my hands. She’s mumbling something about please no, which further breaks my heart.
“Will you stop it!” Her hands fumble at my command, “I’m trying to freaking heal you!”
She doesn’t get it as I clasp her arms and push power into her like I did for Levi. She’s not nearly as hurt as he was, yet it still takes a mountain of power. Long enough that three different people reach the room and stare at me on the floor. I have shielding up around us, but none of them have tried to get through.
“Get through the damn test and stop staring!”
A dragon roar comes from behind them. Fucking hell, this sucks.
The first dodges around me and hits the test, with the other two warily watching each other and then me. Every sound from the hallway gets them to twitch in fear, so I’m trying not to do anything that’ll mess with them more.
At least they’re not attacking.
Finally, she’s healed and staring at me in complete and utter shock. That’s blocked as I put my palms on her eyes and feed her one of the powers I have stored. She barely responds as I pick her up and put her on her feet, “C’mon, we gotta roll. Dragon coming. Just a note? Watch for Kaylee, there’s something going on with her.”
She nods, barely, “What…you saved me? In the trial? Why?”
“I told you, we’re allies.” She doesn’t stop me pulling her towards the test.
“You could have killed me! Drained me!”
“Coulda, but that’s not my thing. Just like I fed you more power now. I have one for Parece, Angelica, and Levi, too. I had to use the others to heal more.”
“I don’t…You’ve said so many times how you think and I sorta believed it, but I just…I never really thought you’d pass up an opportunity like that.”
She tensed when I hugged her, “Don’t worry about it. Just get through the test before the drago…”
A steel dragon races into the room.
Parece. I’ve seen her shifted enough times to know it’s her. Right on her tail, literally, is an ice dragon that I can’t identify. My former roommate’s flanks are torn open and she’s streaming blood everywhere as the ice dragon claws and bites at her.
Then she’s down as the clenching jaws breaks her spine.
She screams out a roar, and I’m gone from Samantha’s side, magic swelling around me as my claws dig into the stone of the room.
The ice dragon roars in victory and comes down for another bite, only to get blocked by my shield. Its claws are torn out of Parece’s flanks with another spell as I launch myself into the air at the confused dragon.
20 spells go off between one flap and the next. Most break apart on the scales, but enough hit to stagger the huge beast.
Air gets dragged from lungs, water starts draining from open wounds, metal pierces wings and breaks ribs.
It never figures out what to do as I land on its face and roar directly into its eyes.
My breath is basically raw magic, and it’s freaking devastating. Dragon scales can protect to an extent from most breaths, but mine? When their eyes are so nicely open?
The scream of agony never starts as my breath pierces through the eyes and eats through the skull and brain. We’re falling to the ground as I pull in the magic, breath cutting off.
Parece is kinda fucked when I get to my feet and run up to her. She’s still upright, but she can’t move her back legs.
“Hold the fuck on, Parece!”
She snaps at me, trying to bite me.
“Just stop it!”
Her next snap gets blocked by a shield, then my hands are on her and I’m feeding healing energy into her at the same time I force her to shift back to human.
Smaller injuries that way, so I’m hoping that makes things easier.
It takes close to five minutes, but she’s healed and staring at me in shock. Then even more confused as I feed her the dragon’s power along with one of the others.
That’s when I realized Samantha was standing over us. Guarding us. “How
many you give her?”
Standing, I pulled Parece up, “Two. One I had stored and the dragon’s. I figured she earned it.”
Parece grabbed me in a hug. I didn’t even realize she was crying until then, “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome. Now c’mon, I have no idea how much time we have left in this thing.”
The hug broke up and we hit the test, making it through pretty quickly.
Then more jogging.
It’s obvious that both of them want to ask me about why I saved them. So obvious. Instead, I say, “Watch for Kaylee, Parece. Something’s up there. She killed someone in that room just as I got there and was gonna kill Samantha, too. She didn’t look like her.”
“What do you mean not like her?”
“She was confident. Strong. When she saw me, she went back to cowering. I’m starting to think she’s nothing like what she’s portraying. I just don’t know when or if it changed.”
“I don’t get it? What’s changed?”
I blinked at the question. “At the start of the trial, the guy behind her tried to cave in her skull?”
“Yeah? I saw that?”
“Do you remember the look on the guy’s face when it happened?”
“Yeah? Sorta? Kinda shocked that he missed?”
Samantha grunted, “No, that’s not it. He was shocked that he moved.”
“Right. She saw it and I nearly missed it. He wasn’t swinging at her. Air magic was used on him to make him swing. She killed him. What’s worse? She drained his magic without letting it be visible.”
“Huh? That’s a hard as hell spell! We know you can do it, but I’ve never met anyone else that I know for a fact knows it!” My former roommate looks downright confused.
“She did it. Just like she did it there, too.”
Dammit.
“In the trial last year? I ran across her roommate. They didn’t get along. Someone stabbed the shit out of her face and killed her. That’s something you do when you hate someone, not normally. I have a bad feeling she did that, too. And others.”
“You think she’s not as weak as she portrays?”
“I’m not sure. I think so. I know she has more magic than most realize. I know she can cast spells way better than most realize. She holds herself back. I think…I think the timid mouse thing? I think it was real last year until I showed up. I gave her some hints about how to be stronger, and I think…I think she ran with it. That’s why she’s in the trial and not going to 25 percent. Because she’s using the fact that everyone thinks she’s prey to fuck them up.”
“Damn, man, that’s crazy. I never would have guessed that. How do you know she did the spells? I didn’t see her casting air magic when the door’s closed?”
“I…I had something running that let me pick up her draining things and what she cast. We seriously have to watch for her. No one will take her seriously, and I think that means she’s been killing more of us than any of us realize.”
We hit another room before they could respond. There are four bodies on the ground in various spots. We each sniff them out, with Parece speaking first, “I think you’re right. I smell Kaylee and only Kaylee at each body. That’s fucked if that’s the case.”
“Yeah, it is. C’mon, let’s get through this test and see if we can finish this. I wish they let us wear watches in here.” Samantha heads for the test first, and we’re through before I could think of a response.
Chapter 49
Four more challenges and six tests pass. We ran into three bodies along the way, with each of them smelling like Kaylee.
What the hell, man? Did telling her about focus turn her into a freaking monster?
Then we’re into the last room. We know it’s that because of the huge timer on the wall showing us 42 minutes and change. How the hell did we burn over five hours? I know there were more tests and challenges in this thing so far, but that’s crazy.
There’s a platform with maybe 15 kids on it, with more on this side. Some are standing around, but others are fighting.
“What the fuck is this? Another bottleneck?” Parece shakes her head and steps into the room.
“This is freaking crazy. Four other hallways coming in, so that’s why we didn’t run into anyone else.” Movement at the next one over distracts Samantha. I can see why, it’s Levi. And he’s practically carrying Kynal and Angelica. They’re both bloody as fuck.
“What the hell?!” I was running before I really realized what I was seeing. Levi looks like he’s been through the ringer, but the other two? They look like they took a ride in a dryer’s spin cycle along with a basket full of razor blades. I’m frankly shocked they’re still breathing when I reach them.
Levi has such a pained look in his eyes seeing us coming, as if he wants to fight us but knows that he can’t.
Samantha and Parece take up a guard spot as Levi drops to his knees, Angelica falling to the floor and Kynal sliding even though Levi’s fighting to hold them.
“What happened?!?” My hands are already on Kynal and Angelica as my magic builds. I expected him to talk, but all I’m getting is a wheeze, which makes me look up to see that his throat has a huge gash through it.
What the holy fuck happened?
Neither of the two that I’m touching are aware enough to do anything, so I ram them with power like nobody’s business, pushing and pushing and wishing I had my turbo charger charm with me.
It takes forever to connect with the damage, but I manage to start it healing.
Except it took nearly 11 minutes as the fighting continues in the room.
Just over 31 minutes left on the clock.
The healing is going slower than I’m wishing it would, but I can’t push it much more than this. No matter what I do, there’s a finite amount that I can push, and this? It’s nearly too much.
Three other classmates come through the same hallway and race for us. Samantha readies to attack them, then falters as two of them run straight into rock spears that I raised in desperation. They were dead and the power fed into me before I even realized I was doing it.
The last is an earth mage, and he breaks up the spear as he readies his own attack. He managed to get off one spell that Parece blocked with a shield, then he froze as electricity balls formed, directly touching him
He lasted long enough for Samantha to take him down, taking his power.
Our guards pulled back in towards me, and I contemplated what to do. We need these three healed to be sure to get the fuck out of here. I can’t even see what we have to do to get to the end, but it’s enough that others don’t want to do it with the rest of the class here. That’s probably bad.
More healing. Just not fast enough. Still.
Another classmate rushes for us, and I grab a mass of stone and create a huge bubble over us, getting a shocked yell from Parece, “What the hell?”
“That was me! I need to not be stopped, this healing is hard as fuck, and they won’t stop coming. Someone get a light spell up in here!”
Two form, one from each of our guards.
“Both of you? Can you create another bubble under the stone, this time of metal? If an earth affinity comes for us, they’ll be able to get through this.”
They share a look, then create a layer of metal in here.
Good. Maybe we’ll be safe for a bit.
“We have to watch the clock somehow. This is fucked. We have to be under a half hour now. There are too many of us here.” Samantha begins pacing.
My ability to track them fades a little as I concentrate more. They can kill me so easily, but I’m hoping they won’t. Praying.
The power locked inside of me moves slightly, drawing my attention to it and wondering…can I use that somehow to get this to go faster?
Maybe it’s possible? I need more power and it’s literal power.
So let’s see. Those to assholes fed me, so let’s take one of them and basically devour the power and feed it into the healing. Will that do anything?
At first? No. Nothing. But when I started breaking it down quicker? I thought I was gonna piss myself…
No, wait, I did.
They healed in an explosion of magic, and I barely got my hands onto Levi before he arced back, flesh coming together in a parody of fast forward. Had I seen this on film, I’d think it’s a joke.
Samantha dropped to her knees next to me, “How the fuck…What the fuck was that?”
Angelica groaned and sat up, looking around the dome, “Umm, don’t get me wrong, I’m shocked as fuck to be alive, but what the hell? Levi? Why didn’t you kill us?”
He pushed his way up, looking far better than I would have expected, “I’ve spent way too much time around Maddie. That was fucked.”
Kynal stood as well, looking down his body, “I thought we were fucking dead. The attack…then you showing up. Thank you for saving us.”
“What happened?” Why do I think this is bad?
Angelica frowns, “We hooked up, a bunch of us. Stacey, Paige, Gage, the two of us. We were going pretty strong and got slowed on one of the tests. Those four dragons? They showed up again. It was a fucking bloodbath.”
Fuck! “Where…where are the others? Stacey? Gage? Paige?”
Her eyes dropped, “Dead.”
Levi shook his head, “I showed up when it was getting bad. The fire dragon took out Gage before I could get to them. Paige and Stacey were fighting the steel dragon, but the water fuckhead…Stacey never even knew they were coming.”
“And…Paige? What happened to her?”
“She tried to get to Gage and some of the others killed her. She got hit with like 20 spells at the same time.”
My rage built, “Motherfucker!”
Samantha hugged me, “Calm down! I don’t like this either, but…I hate to say it, but it happens. If we don’t come up with a plan to get the fuck out of here, we’ll all die. There are too many of us here still.”
My rage continued to build as I thought. “I have power to give out. Levi? Get over here.” He accepted the power. “Angelica?” More to her. I have one more from the earlier batch and I hadn’t thought about giving it to Kynal, but we have to get through this. “C’mon, Kynal, one for you too.”