Elydes-Chapter 352 - A Matter of Trust

Elydes-Chapter 352 - A Matter of Trust

Chapter 352 - A Matter of Trust
Kai strode to intercept the students besieging Alden. His roommate stalked ahead with a frigid scowl, eyes flicking between the passages leading into darkness, probably debating a dash into one to shake off his hangers-on.
Take that, Hobbes. I can rescue people too!
The distance closed too fast. Before he could formulate a strategy, he’d reached the group. His steps faltered. The petite girl shoved to the back noticed him, pursing her lips at another rival. Her gaze drew the attention of a teen from Martial Studies. Both scanned him with undisguised hostility.
“Move along, freshie,” she snorted, echoed by the stout older teen. “Scram if you know what’s good for you.”
Their disdain killed whatever hesitation Kai had. Ignoring their words, he channeled a trickle of Empower to slip past them and get his roommate’s attention.
“Hey! I’m talking with you—” The Martial student moved to bar his path, relying on his size and physical profession. That might have worked if they were both at Yellow ★—they weren’t. When their shoulders met, the teen staggered back with a surprised yelp.
Still without a plan, Kai had a second to think before the commotion made seven pairs of eyes shift toward him, including Alden’s. His deep violet irises widened upon seeing him.
Yeah, you owe me a week of dishes for this.
If only he still had Improvisation telling him how to manipulate the situation in his favor. Alas, having easy lies at his fingertips carried its own set of problems. And did he really need a skill to spout bullshit?
“Forgive the intrusion, Master Blackwoods,” Kai said. Not trusting he could pull off their obsequious flattery, he aimed for dry reverence. “It would be my honor to offer my aid, however meager. I have good scouting and mapping skills to find the fastest way out. I’ll gladly relinquish any credit I earn from these Trials to accompany you.”
The stunned silence following his statement made him doubt his acting skills. Instants stretched as he forced an earnest demeanor, clamping down on rising embarrassment. Had he laid it down too thick? Did he lose his flair for drama in the Sanctuary? Were they all about to burst out laughing?
This is worth at least two weeks of dishes.
Thankfully, Alden was the first to react. With the slightest shift in posture, he regarded him like a prince might a horse he considered buying. “I will allow it.” He tilted his head as if bestowing a great boon and motioning him on. “Lead the way.”
Damn, he’s good.
So good that Kai wondered if his roommate had gotten the hint or was taking him seriously. Head bowed to hide his expression, he channeled more Empower to slip past the group before they could recover. “Please, follow me.”
I should ask for a month of dishes.
He strode toward the tunnels, Alden close behind, nearly clipping his heels. The approaching passages forced him into another quick decision. His mind strained, keen to catch any hint from Hallowed Intuition. He had the inkling that the passage marked with the hourglass would be problematic, but had nothing on the other two. If he were to guess, the crossed spears might indicate a team or combat challenge, and the key with six locks a puzzle or split paths.
Traces of faint runes glimmered beneath the marks carved in the stone—possibly a clue on the paths.
No time to study them.
The gazes of the others still pierced their backs, joined by the fainter scrutiny from the bickering patricians. If any of them chased them, they could be put in an awkward position. There were no rules encouraging conflict, but neither any to deter it.
Better we get ahead before they get their act together.
Whatever obstacles or dangers waited for him, a bunch of unpredictable teenagers was unlikely to make them easier.
Shoulders squared with feigned confidence, Kai picked the key and locks since he had already walked past the crossed spears while thinking. Heading into the passage, the flare of Light spells dimmed as the tunnel twisted and sloped downward—not the most promising start.
His boot sent a rock skidding forward and nearly tripped him in the dark. He reached for a crystal light in his ring, just to realize his spatial artifact wasn’t there, cursing under his breath. He rubbed his fingers. His hand felt bare without it. Since Elijah had gifted it to him over three years ago, he had almost never taken it off.
They sabotage my preparations and call it fairness
As his eyes got used to the darkness, the bluish moss draping the walls cast enough light to see where he was going. Three lines faintly glowed on the silver band on his wrist. Behind him, Alden’s steps softly pressed on the ground, seemingly at ease.
They did give us days for the Trials.
He didn’t want to waste his Fire reserve on a torch in the first hour of the Trials, especially when he might not get a chance to restock. The dense essence underground strongly skewed toward Earth and Shadow, highlighting the widening passage.
“No one seems to be following us.” Kai slowed his reckless pace enough to react to potential whispers of danger. “Also, I’m not giving you my credits.”
“That’s… fine. I didn’t think you would.” Alden caught up on his left, appearing thoughtful. His voice had lost its imperious lilt, though it remained too level to reveal much else. “You didn’t have to walk up to them and drag me away.”
“We’re roommates. It looked like you could use the help.”
“Hmm… thank you.”
Trekking through the tunnel in the dark was
almost
enough not to make the silences awkward. The more Kai wrung his brain for something to say, the more ideas seemed to flee him.
Should I tell him he owes me a month of dishes?
“I didn’t really get why you were so… particular about your name before today. It must be annoying having people suck up to you who can’t even take a no.”
“It’s inconvenient, yes. They usually back off when I tell them, but the Trials made them more persistent.”
“Sounds bothersome,” Kai sympathized. He halfway raised his arm for a friendly clap before he thought better of it, turning his gesture into a
smooth
stretch. “What would they even do? Do they think you’ll shoo them away with bags of gold if they annoy you enough?”
“Even scraps from a Great House can change the life of most people and their families,” Alden said dryly, merely stating a fact. “They likely assumed I’d overlook their rudeness if they proved themselves useful in the Trials.”
“How terribly naive of them. Hey, maybe you should raze their homes and salt their fields. A bold statement, you know? Build a reputation of dread, so people will shiver in your presence.”
“Do you think it would work?” Alden asked, thoughtful. “There are laws to punish people who’ve insulted my House. Salting their land might be difficult, but there are more ways to make their land barren for generations. That might solve the issue…”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; any instances of this story on Amazon.
“I—no, no. I was just trying to be funny. Please, don’t do that. ”
“I know, Mat. I can tell a joke, too. I’m not going to destroy another student because they annoyed me. Not on their first offense.”
“You’re still joking, right?”
“Of course,” Alden said, the smallest inflection betraying a smile. “They would have to offend me repeatedly and severely. Most people don’t cross my path often enough for that.”
Kai gave a forced chuckle and scratched his neck. “So, uh… your family must be really,
really
important if people act crazy like that?”
“I’ve only been asked that question twice in my life. Both times by you.”
“Really? I knew I was special.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Kai laughed more naturally, keeping a close eye on Hallowed Intuition.
How long are we gonna walk? Please, tell me I didn’t pick some test of patience.
He had caught no whiff of an illusion or any enchantment. The tunnel wound unevenly in the darkness, always broad enough to fit a cluster of students. The few branches they’d crossed amounted to little more than cracks in the stone.
Fake Dumbledore said to stay on the path, or terrible things would happen.
“Did they make these passages just for the Trials?” Kai mused, realizing he’d spoken out loud only when Alden answered.
“As you descend deeper, the Underground already has plenty of cave systems. We should proceed carefully. The Trials are never simple.”
“The first passage should be fine. I don’t want to have people catch up. Or did you notice something? You participated in another Trials in the first semester, right? How was it? Rob said your previous roommates left Raelion then. But I’ve heard almost no one speak of it.”
“Yes, that one was… different. Shorter. But not pleasant.”
Kai waited, vainly hoping for more details, but from what he knew of his roommate, pushing would get him nothing. “Well, let’s just get through this one. I have a decent danger skill, so it should be fine to keep this pace.”
This time I’m paying attention. Hobbes is right. How could I get knocked out without noticing?
He scowled at himself. The supposed safety of the academy grounds had lulled him into foolishness. You couldn’t get taken by surprise if you didn’t lower your guard. Hallowed Intuition worked better with higher danger; he had never considered how people could get around that if they didn’t mean him harm
“
Mat
,” Alden said as if carefully choosing each word. “Everyone at Raelion has a danger skill. Messing with them is common in the Trials to teach us not to trust them blindly.”
“Yeah, but that only works if your skill is bad.”
“You think yours is beyond what the professors’ ability to trick?” Alden managed to drip skepticism without twitching a line on his face.
Is that a skill you pick up being a really fancy patrician, or is it extra credit? And hey, I didn’t make fun of you when you bragged about your big, scary family. Have a little faith.
“I’m sure it’ll beat anything they’d use for first years,” Kai said, peering at a brighter glow deeper into the passage. “I think we finally got somewhere.”
Descending a steep slope, the tunnel leveled and opened into a wide cavern dimly lit by a quartz jutting from the ceiling. Along the rocky walls, stone doors stood at the cardinal points. They bore no markings except the runes engraved on their surface, keeping them locked. The last detail only became visible after they stepped inside—three words etched in a circle on the stone below the glowing crystal:
Choose one Path
.
Does it mean we can only open one? And why are there three choices and not six?
“We should have studied the hints before heading into the tunnel,” Alden voiced the same thought fluttering in his head. “There might be no way to solve the riddle without the first clue.”
Of course, it’s a maze
and
a puzzle.
“Do you want to go back and drag a band of hangers-on with us?”
His roommate seemed to actually consider it before vehemently shaking his head. “No, I’d rather not. I’m sorry… for causing this.”
“Don’t be. It was my choice to grab you on the way out. We’ll be fine.” Kai moved to study the simple enchantments. “I think one is a mana puzzle, another a runic sequence and the last we just have to break the seal.” He pointed them out. “They don’t seem very hard.”
“I agree,” Alden said with chagrin. “Opening is only half the challenge if we don’t choose the right one to proceed. There are probably other doors beyond these, and not every path will lead out.”
“Yep, I agree.” Kai took a tentative step forward and stopped before the sealed door. “Mhmm… we’ll pick this one.”
“Why that one?”
“Didn’t you listen to my pitch?” He grinned back. “I told you I have good skills to find the exit. This door gives me a good feeling.”
“A good…
feeling
?”
“Yes!” Kai nodded, seeing his roommate's befuddled gaze only made him more eager to tease him. “It makes me warm and fuzzy.” More accurately, Hallowed Intuition gave him a soft hum when he pictured himself taking that path, but that was a boring explanation.
Alden stared blankly at him for several seconds. When he spoke, his words came slow and stiff. “Alright… we can try it. The academy must have left a way to backtrack in the first challenge. If we get into a dead end or a trap, we’ll go back.”
“Deal. Just give me a minute to open this.” He turned to the sealed door and cracked his knuckles. Drawing his hands over the runes, he wove threads of essence with Mana Engraving.
It’s almost nostalgic. Let’s see… Fizzle this. Connect that…
After tampering with the Vastaire’s ruin inside the Sanctuary, the door was insultingly easy. The only miscalculation was that he took forty-eight seconds less than he’d predicted.
“Done.” Kai stepped back as runes burned through the engraved arrays, and the stone door slid aside with a grind. “C’mon, let go.” He glanced over his shoulder, pleased to add another image to the mnemonic folder labeled Alden’s funny faces.
“I’m… coming.”
Kai stepped into another dark and humid tunnel. They’d just taken a few steps inside when the door slammed shut behind them.
“Hmm, guess no backtracking. I’m sure it’s fine.” He shrugged, feeling a little bad for Alden’s hollow look like he’d already given up on the Trials. “What’s up with the long face? We’ve got more ground to cover.”
He really has no faith in me.
As they’d expected, the passage led to another chamber lit by a dim quartz—more doors and more locks. Kai merrily strolled to a threshold where he had to memorize a sequence of forty-nine consecutive runes on a fourteen-second timer. Each cavern they crossed presented between two and six choices, each demanding a different combination of knowledge and skills. Clearly, the Trial had been designed to encourage collaboration between students of different courses of study.
Mana puzzles and enchantments accounted for the majority of locks, followed by knowledge and Dexterity challenges. Altogether, those only covered half the variety. His personal favorite was when he had to guide an alchemic reaction through a series of tubes and vials linked to the door, and another that required nothing more than brute Strength to push it open.
Being a jack of all trades paid off.
Kai strode confidently, following his intuition. He had no idea what pattern or criteria they should use to pick the doors. Really, why strain his mind on a complicated riddle when he could just follow his warm fuzzy feelings? The choice was a no-brainer. Alden had looked a little apoplectic for the first dozen chambers, though he eventually resigned when he noticed that his choices never looped back in the maze, and began competing to solve the puzzles.
That should make twenty-eight… someone really got wild building this stuff.
Kai leaped over the shattered rocks cramping the passage, eager to move into more interesting challenges. Stepping into the twenty-ninth chamber, he immediately noticed the increased brightness from six quartz set in the ceiling. Across from him, a
single
door stood in the passage—twice the size of the previous ones.
Finally done!
“I told you to trust me.” He smirked as Alden regally entered behind him.
“It does appear you were right.” His roommate muttered with hurtful disbelief. “I apologize for my reasonable doubts. Do you want help with the lock?”
“No, this one’s mine,” Kai said, ecstatic to see an enchanted seal on the final passage. “Just give me… uhm, it might take a bit to crack this.”
Several interlocking arrays layered the surface, drastically more complex than any door he’d encountered.
Guess it’s the final one. More fun for me.
Kai hummed, artfully weaving thread on top of the runes. It took over five minutes before the last runes fizzled out. Dust trickled from the ceiling as the massive door slid aside into a vast cavern. A frigid gust carrying an odd smell wafted from within. The bright light in the chamber blinded him to the details.
Alden followed him inside without needing prompting.
The doors slammed shut behind them. That’s when Kai noticed something sticky beneath his boot.
Uhm… why’s the floor covered in webs?

Chapter 352 - A Matter of Trust