The crash of glass was deafening as it echoed up from the grand hall, seeming to go on forever. Whenever he thought it was finally done, he would wince as yet another part decided to break off and join the rest of the glass below.

  “Oops,” Dario said lamely once silence had returned, leaving a ringing in his ears as he shuffled over to a glaring Nika.

  There was no point in trying to be quiet after that, so they sped up as they made their way down from the rooftop onto a mound of broken stones, which ended near a pillar that they could use to slide the rest of the way down.

  Though moss and dust took away some of its luster, the hall was far more impressive than it had looked from above, lined with statues and adorned pillars that reached up to arched ceilings, each of them covered with faded artwork. Even the few floor tiles that were not covered in pieces of glass or stone looked like they were made of fancy stuff, though Dario was no expert. There were four obvious doorways that were more like gates, though two of them were surrounded by collapsed walls, piles of rubble blocking the passage.

  They went through the closest open gate, which led to a series of hallways with smaller rooms, filled with rotten wooden beds and blankets. In those hallways, there were signs of violence. Scorch marks, broken arrows and blades and gouges in the stone told the story of a battle having taken place here. They found the first remains of people there, their bones and armor laid out in a way that looked like they’d gone down fighting.

  “Where are the beast corpses? Were these warriors overwhelmed so easily that they slayed not a single one?” Nika frowned as she looked over the old bones. “None of these bones have been chewed on. What manner of beast takes away only their own dead, refusing to eat the fallen?”

  Dario could only shrug as they went on to search each of the many sleeping quarters.

  “Again nothing,” he grumbled as he kicked one of the beds, the old wood easily coming apart. Down the other side of the hall, they found what had likely been washrooms, but also in those there was not a single trace of Ki nor any scrolls that could teach them anything, so they made their way back out into the grand hall.

  The second gate had its massive doors shattered inward by what had either been a mad technique of Ki or an explosive artefact. A black mark covered a large part of the floor and charred wood and steel were scattered deep into the hallway. More scorch marks and gouges in the stone were obvious, though here there were only a few fragments of bone to be seen.

  Deeper in through a wide passage, there were large offices and even grander rooms, lined with stone seats, which had likely been classrooms. There was writing on the wall, but they appeared to be only meaningless phrases or iconography of this institution.

  Still, it felt like an important chamber, so on their way back out, Dario looked closely at every detail, until he thought he spotted a bit of lingering Ki in the grooves of the wall. He shimmied his dagger in and, after a bit of fiddling, managed to crack open the tile. There was a small alcove hidden there, holding a crystal about the size of his thumb and an inscription carved into the wall behind it in tiny letters.

  “The key to this place is humanity’s grace,” he recited. “Ooh, I do like a good riddle. Humanity's grace, huh? Wonder what that means.”

  Nika came over and they both tried poking and shifting the crystal, infusing it with different types of Ki, but nothing worked. Dario went all the way around the hallway, trying to find more hidden gaps between the tiles, but that also didn’t yield any results.

  “Ugh! Come on, there has to be something! If we don’t find anything here we’ll have to start from scratch.”

  However frustrating it was, breaking the damn crystal wouldn’t help them either, so after trying everything they could think of, they decided it would be best to first move on and look for other clues. As Dario was paying more attention to the walls now, he noticed an inscription above the gate they came out of, barely readable through the dust and moss.

  “I think it says ‘Auditorium’ up here. Guess that confirms it was a classroom. What does the next gate say?”

  “This one is promising, I believe it says ‘testing room’,” Nika called back from the next door, which was mostly covered by a pile of rubble. She got to work digging the top section of rubble out of the way, then struck a hole in the door just wide enough to crawl through.

  There was another doorway ahead, this one a panel of stone which was half open. Above the doorway, a quote was carved into the stone in large letters: ‘Only those who master their emotions, can expect to control their environment’.

  “Ah, if I recall correctly, that is a quote from Dougen’s Shobogenzo. A school of thought that holds that reduction of the ego should be our ultimate goal,” she said, frowning in thought before snapping her fingers as her eyes lit up. “Actually, now that I’m thinking of it, I believe the line about the grace of humanity may also belong to Dougen. If it does, then it refers to empathy.”

  “So the key to that place is empathy…” Dario said slowly, scratching his head. “Well, I haven’t got a clue what to do with that. Should we just go through this testing room first?”

  After squeezing through the small opening, they were faced with a pristine white room with a single black altar in the center, two rounded crystals perched on top. There was another thick, sliding stone panel that would presumably lead to the next room, but it was closed. Dario could see that a complex weave of Ki ran through the altar, including some light Ki, though he wouldn’t be able to tell what it might do.

  On one of those neat white walls, facing what he figured was the front of the altar, a single word was outlined in large, clear lettering: ‘SHAME’.

  “A bit more instruction would be too much to ask, huh? It’s like this whole place was built to be one giant riddle.”

  After closely scanning the walls of the room, Dario was crouched by the altar, poking at it from all sides.

  “One presumes that there would have been teachers to guide the students through the tests.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Dario grunted as he tapped the back of the altar. Or it might have been the front. “There’s a tiny slit here, I think something’s meant to come out of there. It might be light, actually, but I can’t be sure.”

  “These crystals are likely of the same nature as the one in the other hallway. I believe the one we encountered in front of the vault may also have been similar,” Nika said.

  “Well, they might look fancy, but they sure don’t do much. Maybe they’re broken?”

  In the hours that followed, they tried everything they could think of to get the crystals to activate. Channeling all types of Ki into them, pouring water over them, squeezing them, burning them, poking them, breathing on them. At one point, Dario even sang a song into one of the crystals, though Nika didn’t let that go on for long.

  Nika had resisted making a hole in the wall, saying that ‘there are no shortcuts to learning’, which Dario thought was a load of trogshit, though he was wise enough to keep that to himself. But after hours of failed attempts, she was finally getting ready to step up to the wall when something changed.

  “They are shaped like they’re meant to be held, aren’t they?” he said, once again holding onto the crystals as he channeled a bit of light Ki inside. “They’re at the right height for it too. Okay, so I’m a student, standing here holding the weird crystals and then… shame. There’s the thing about controlling emotions, so… am I supposed to drop my pants without blushing?”

  “I would advise against that,” Nika replied drily as she put her hand to the wall.

  “Probably wouldn’t even work on me,” he said, grinning at her. “I don’t get embarrassed easily. Except maybe for that one time when I-”

  There was a sudden pull of Ki and an image flickered on the opposite wall. Dario pulled away from the crystals like they were on fire. The image had only been there for less than a second, but he thought he recognized what had been on display there.

  “What the fuck was that?” he exclaimed, then quickly backpedaling when Nika gave him an angry look. “I mean, err, what in the name of the… pillar...” Dario faltered. “Ugh, it’s so lame I can’t even say it.”

  “What did you do that was different from before?”

  “Since we were talking about embarrassing things, I was just remembering a time when I, err… well, just an embarrassing memory. It sounds crazy, but I think this thing pulled the memory out of my head somehow. Have you ever heard of something like that?”

  Nika shook her head, frowning. “Are you certain?”

  'It was only a second, but these eyes are never wrong. I’d bet fifty pearls that was seven year old Dario, his little green pants filled with a steaming pile of you-know-what.”

  “...Well, whatever you were doing, it seemed to be working. Kindly proceed.”

  Dario opened his mouth to protest, only to realize that she had a point. With a heavy sigh, he grabbed the crystal again and began to think back on his memories of shame.

  After a short moment, the images re-started again, blurry in parts and often dropping away for a second before resuming. After a few moments, they cleared up, the colors brightening and the images sharpening until a clear scene started to unfold on the white wall. When the altar rumbled strangely and then the sound of children’s voices began to play, Dario groaned.

  “Mommy, mommy, he couldn’t hold it anymore! It all came out at once, just like a trog!”

  His brother Matteo was beaming, only about nine at the time, followed by a crying little Dario.

  “Ooh, you had a little accident? How did that happen?” his mother asked sweetly.

  “I ate the bad berries!” little Dario cried.

  “You ate the poopoo berries again? You know they’re not good for your tummy!”

  “But they look so yummy!”

  “Hahaha!” Matteo was shrieking with laughter. “I’m going to call you Troggio!”

  Dario sighed, shaking his head as the sounds of crying and laughter continued. “Little bastard called me Troggio for months. What’s the point of this, anyway? Nothing’s happening.”

  He looked over at Nika when she didn’t answer. Her face was carefully neutral, but there was a tension there, and the sides of her lips were clearly curling up.

  “Oh, you think this is funny, do you?”

  She shook her head, lips pressed tightly together, but he could see the laughter in her eyes.

  “Not very high-minded of you,” he grumbled, but then his eyes widened as the images on the wall shifted. “Oh no, not Bianca.”

  It was another memory, showing Dario as a young teenager this time, holding hands with a dark-haired girl.

  “No, stop it, I wasn’t even thinking about this!” he protested, but the images kept rolling on.

  With flushed cheeks, young Dario leaned in closer, eyes closing. The young girl came a bit closer herself, seeming eager, until Dario’s mouth opened slightly, face scrunching up and lips curling back to reveal teeth, opening and closing in a way that made him look like a fish.

  “Wait, why is it even showing me like that? Isn’t this supposed to be my own memory?” he exclaimed, but there was no answer, only a suppressed snort sounding from where Nika stood.

  “Eww, what the heck!” the girl from the memory exclaimed, pushing him away before running off. Young Dario was left blinking in confusion, until his face turned to horror when she ran to a group of other girls, shouting about what a horrible kisser he was.

  The pants-shitting story was nothing, but now he was beginning to cringe as the tight and uncomfortable feeling of shame settled around his stomach. All he wanted to do was let go and walk away from this cursed altar, but he knew that something would need to happen before they could move on.

  What could be meant by controlling his shame? Is it simply a matter of not feeling it while those memories are shown? How would that even work? The crystal would have to know whether or not he was actually feeling shame, while at the same time plucking images out of his head. It seemed like a step too far, but what else could it be?

  He looked up to see yet another memory playing itself out on the wall, but he had some trouble placing it. It should be a recent one, from how old his face looked as it was focused on a table. A dim ball of light sprang into being on the table, starting to change its shape.

  “What is this?” he muttered. “Just a memory of me training?”

  The ball of light was shaped into a human form, colors changing to match the pale tone of human skin. It began to wriggle, long hairs falling down the side of a feminine face, the bottom part shifting into curvy legs while the upper part changed into an ample bosom. The little figure of light began to sway from left to right in a kind of dance. Then there was the clinking sound of Dario loosening his belt and-

  “No!” he cried out, releasing the crystals so that the feed cut off. “Tenjin’s beard but this thing is all kinds of messed up!”

  The cloying feeling of shame was strong now as he looked sideways over Nika, to see if she had realized, but she seemed only confused.

  “You were just training? I don’t understand.”

  “Good. Let’s keep it that way.”

  As relief began to wash the deep shame away, he noticed a dark red tendril of smoke in front of his chest, just like the auburn smoke he’d seen before. It lingered a bit longer this time, long enough that he was sure he wasn’t hallucinating. How did this suddenly get there? What was even more peculiar - it felt like Ki. He tried to grasp it with his mind and, though it was slippery, he got the sense that it should be possible to control it.

  But where could that burgundy Ki have possibly come from?