Why was it that having his brain sanded smooth made his body feel weak?

  [Quest: The Sea God's Test]

  - Survive the First Trial 1/1. Stage Complete!

  [Quest: The Sea God's Test]

  - Survive the Second Trial 0/1.

  He hit his knees in that black sand, and a moment later his dinner exited him, stomach rolling. Thankfully, the waves surging up the beach carried the vomit away, leaving him to wipe his mouth weakly with the back of his hand. He looked up at the stranger, the entity standing there and watching him impassively. Brom didn't say anything, his attitude muted and subdued. Whatever this thing was doing to him, his passives weren't standing up against it. Gods could break the rules, it seemed. Or maybe that was the rules of the Trial?

  An approving smile accompanied the stranger's next words. "Congratulations, you've passed the Trial of Forbearance."

  Brom blinked, thinking at first that he'd heard wrong. Or maybe that word didn't mean what he thought it did. "Forbearance? What did fucking Forbearance have to do with any of that?"

  The stranger laughed. "Are you going to continue to allow yourself to be ruled by anger, resentment, and regret?" There was a momentary pause before the stranger nodded, pleased by whatever expression had been on Brom's face. Slowly, the stranger reached a hand to him. "Get off your knees, Brom Jones. You don't belong there."

  He snorted, but he took that hand, letting himself be pulled to his feet. "You sure about that?"

  "Enough to wager on it." The stranger's grip was stronger than iron, the pull more magnetic. He didn't let go even though Brom was standing now, striking features twisted with some emotion that wasn't quite humor. "Would you like to make that bet?"

  "Depends on the details, I suppose?" He was humoring the stranger, buying himself a little more time to recover and maybe get his hand back.

  "It's quite simple, I will combine the next two Trials into one. Faith and Fortitude, tested at the same time." A hand was held up, forestalling any comment Brom might have made. "Not Faith in a higher power, faith in yourself. Should you accept and succeed, you can be assured of generous rewards." The stranger released him then, hands going slack at the entity's sides.

  Brom snorted, arms folded over his chest. "And if I fail, it's what? I'm double dead? I haunt this beach as some sort of roaming world boss when the moon is full?"

  The stranger laughed, a sound straight from his belly. "Amusing as that would be, no. You'd live Brom Jones. You'd live, and you'd wish you didn't." The smile that followed it was pointed as a shark's and twice as predatory. "So, do we have a wager?" That hand extended again, waiting to be gripped and the deal to be sealed.

  He stared at it for a moment, then looked back to the stranger's face. "Isn't this backwards though? Shouldn't you want me to fail, not succeed? Then you wouldn't have to reward me, and you could go on your merry way?"

  "Nothing means more to me than winning. I adore being correct. The rewards are nothing to me compared to the satisfaction that comes when someone has to admit that I was right this whole time. Now, no more stalling. Will you take the wager, or should we proceed with the second trial as is?"

  It was a bad idea. Nothing good came from bargains with Gods you didn't believe in and powers you didn't understand. Anyone expecting him to do the smart thing was going to be disappointed, he hadn't gotten this far without risk. His palm smacked into the stranger's firmly, before he could change his mind. The crisp sound it made was counterpointed by his bones creaking as the stranger caught him in a vice from which there was no escape.

  [Quest: The Sea God's Test]

  - Survive the Second Trial 0/1.

  Quest UPDATE!

  - Survive The Crucible 0/1!

  "A moment for me to set everything up. Just rest a moment."

  Brom lost time. He didn't fall asleep, he didn't go back into the dark place, things just changed. The beach was gone from under his feet, instead he felt rock. The quiet waves of Aria Beach were replaced with more boisterous breakers, surging and slamming into the rocks below. He didn't recognize where they'd moved to, then again, he wasn't overly familiar with all the coastline around Cold Bay.

  The stranger stood in front of him, holding out two iron rings fixed to lengths of heavy chain. "Your test is very simple, Brom Jones. Hold these chains. No matter how your shoulders burn. No matter how your arms ache. You have to hold the weight until the sun rises. It will be painful, you will want to drop them, and nobody is going to stop you from doing it. However, there's more incentive than just my 'rewards' for you to not fail." The entity gestured toward the opposite end of the chain and what was attached to it.

  TJ.

  The young man had been fastened to the anchor at the end of the chain, his hair stirring softly in the breeze. He looked to have been stolen right out of his bed, still wearing his pjs with the cartoon hotdogs on them. He didn't seem to be awake yet, but it was only a matter of time before whatever spell the stranger had him under wore off.

  "You- this wasn't part of our wager!" Brom was furious. At no point had the idea that TJ might be put in danger for his trial ever crossed his mind. "Get him out of there!"

  The stranger laughed, shaking his head, shaking the iron rings for Brom to take from him. "Didn't I make it very plain that if you failed, something worse than death was waiting? You already have more than your fair share of self loathing, there wasn't anything I could do to your person that would have made this wager worth it. No incentive I could have given you. This is the heart of my wager, Brom Jones, my belief in you. You were given an abundance of strength in this new world, and what is the point of it if you can't use it for the one person who believes in you? After all, isn't that what your nephew is always telling you? To believe in yourself?"

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  As Brom took the rings with shaking hands, the stranger patted him on the shoulder, chuckling. "We'll add more weight every hour. Remember, you can let go any time." With those last words, he shoved the anchor over the edge and let it dangle above the angry surf below. Those links rattled, spooling free, till a sharp jerk pulled Brom down to his knees as the anchor came to a halt, swaying.

  "You fucking son of a bitch!" He roared impotently into the wind, unable to see the stranger, no matter how he craned his head. Already, his arms and shoulders were on fire, his knees weren't happy about it either. Nothing was coming up in his HUD, neither statuses to be cleared nor even a fucking timer that told him how long he had until morning. He took a few deep breaths, focusing on getting his heart rate steady. It wasn't too bad right now, honestly, most of the pain had come from the unprepared stop. It was awkward more than anything.

  A sharp shout from below told him that TJ had woken up, a faint ghost of movement through the chain telling Brom he was moving around. "TJ! Stay calm, I've got you."

  "Uncle B! What's going on?! What the hell is going on?" TJ's voice cracked, moving up into a shrill range. Sure, the world had changed, and the teen was adapting pretty well, but anyone would be terrified to wake up tied to an anchor. Especially when there was a long drop into angry water below.

  He gave a tentative pull, seeing if he could raise the anchor back up over the edge. Predictably, that was prevented. "Just stay calm, kiddo, it's going to be a little uncomfortable, but you're safe. I'm not going to let you fall." Brom wanted to be angry, but really, this was his own fault. He had known he shouldn't have taken the wager, but he hadn't for a moment thought that his poor life choices were going to put TJ in danger. He just kept his grip on the rings, breathing slowly as he knelt there. He didn't dare change a single thing for fear he'd jostle TJ.

  "Uh, yeah. Sure. Easy to say. Hard to do!" TJ's breathless voice echoed back up to him, still a little too high to be called calm, but the teen was doing remarkably well all things considered. "So, how did I end up here?"

  "I fucked up." The rest of it wasn't important at this point. "But since I got you into it, I'll get you out of it. We just have to hold on till dawn."

  "Oh. Okay. Cool. Cool, cool cool." A moment of silence followed that. Then, in a small voice almost lost in the sound of wind and wave, he asked the pertinent question. "So, how long till dawn?"

  Brom sighed. "I have no idea." He knew when he'd come down to the beach, that had been 9:30pm. What he didn't know was how long the first Trial had taken. For all he knew, twenty minutes had passed. Worse still, as far north as they were, dawn was a long time coming. He just closed his eyes, ignoring everything else besides his own breathing and TJ's voice.

  He was acutely aware when the first weight was added. A pair of links slid down the prongs of the anchor that tugged ever so slightly harder at his already aching body. His fingers had stopped aching and gone numb, it was only the burn in the tendons that told him they were still there, still locked in place. TJ's shout startled him a bit, and he realized that the other must be seeing whatever was putting the weight on. "Don't worry, they won't bother you, they're here to fuck with me."

  "Uncle B, why..."

  That was the question, wasn't it? Why. It wasn't greed, correction, it wasn't just greed. Maybe it was just something he couldn't put into words. The certainty of the stranger that there was something in him, some greater value, Brom couldn't see himself. Or maybe he really had just wanted to get everything over with. Or, fuck it, he wasn't the kind to analyze his choices. "TJ, like a man who jumped naked in cactus once said, 'it seemed like a good idea at the time'."

  There was a deep silence from below and then. "...please do not tell me you jumped naked in cactus..."

  Brom snorted. "It's a phrase I heard somewhere, do I look like I'm from Florida to you?" Brom had done some crazy shit in his life, but not that crazy! Most of his dad lore was entirely accidental, right place at the wrong time type bullshit. He smiled a little, then flinched as the first fat drop of rain hit him. "Fuck."

  At the same time, from down below, TJ echoed him. "Fuck."

  Rain made everything harder. There was no time to stop and banter. Brom's entire world turned into pinpoint focus and agony, his passives not kicking in. They didn't dull pain, and apparently, he hadn't taken any sort of debuff, shouldn't they at least be keeping him warm? Instead, he gritted his teeth, ruddy hair plastered to his head, shivers rippling through him as he got cold and wet. He sneezed, feeling the anchor growing heavier and heavier by the hour. Straining. Grinding. This was a mental fucking test greater than the other had been. Faith and Fortitude, his ass!

  Worse, with the heavy cloud cover, there was no way in hell they'd be able to tell when the sun came up. Brom realized, belatedly, that he should have gotten a set time limit because who knew if time was even passing. "Fuck..." he muttered, head drooping. But he had to believe that wasn't the case. The stranger had said he liked winning more than anything, a test without a time limit was one that Brom couldn't win. So he just hummed brokenly to himself, responding to TJ whenever the youngster called up and checked on him.

  Things had been quiet for a long time, each of them trapped in their own little sphere of misery. Soaked to the skin, chilled to the bone, the shivering had set in. His traits were well and truly offline, at least partly, because with simple human strength, there was no way he could have done this. Brom was reminded, though, of a history lesson he'd suffered through back in school. Of the Salem Witch trials and the man they'd killed under rocks. All he'd had to do was confess, and they'd have taken him to stand trial, instead he'd looked up at them and calmly muttered two words.

  Brom laughed a little, his eyes closed. "More weight."

  The stranger's chuckle washed over him, those big hands coming down and seizing hold of the chains. For the first time in what felt like eternity, the pressure eased. "Open your eyes, Brom Jones. The sun's rising."

  And it was the most beautiful sunrise Brom had ever seen.

  [Quest: The Sea God's Test]

  - Survive The Crucible 1/1! Complete!