Chapter 31: Trial of Shadows (Part 2)

  The gathering of light sources continues until we have what amounts to a small camp of illumination in the center of the vast hall. It's not much, maybe a few meters of radius where we can see each other's true forms in the shadow reflections, but it's enough.

  Enough to catch our breath. Enough to see what we've done to each other.

  Hynnal stalks the perimeter, and even though I can only see his shadow, I can read the fury in every movement. He signals questions at his surviving warriors, trying to piece together what happened.

  A commotion at the edge of our light-circle draws attention. Several Gnolls have found something, and they're gesturing excitedly. Hynnal moves to investigate, and we follow, curious despite our exhaustion.

  At the center of the plaza stands a monument. In all the chaos and darkness, we'd somehow failed to notice it, but now with our lights gathered, it's impossible to miss.

  A sun disk. Massive, made of the same crystal as the lanterns, easily ten feet in diameter and mounted on a pedestal of that smooth, beige stone. It's dark now, cold, but I can see intricate carvings covering its surface. The same incomprehensible script from the entrance, spiraling from the outer edge to the center.

  Hynnal approaches it cautiously, his warriors flanking him with weapons ready. He reaches out with one clawed hand to touch the disk's surface.

  And nothing happens.

  He tries again, pressing harder, then eventually slamming his fist against it in frustration. Still nothing.

  It's not responding to the touch like the other crystals. So what is the trigger?

  I study the monument, my scientific mind working to reveal its purpose.

  A sun disk, at the center of a plaza, in a place that's showing us a memory of this city before it fell. And the trial itself, stripping our identities, making us fight each other as shadows until we learned to use light to find our true forms.

  It has to be a puzzle. A lock we're supposed to open.

  Hynnal has other ideas. The scarred leader approaches with predatory focus, his saber still drawn. He reaches out as if to claim the disk by force, calculation already gleaming in his eyes. This is a treasure, something powerful, and therefore something to take.

  But we had to use light to reveal the truth in the shadows…

  "So… the crystals." I mutter to myself.

  Around the pedestal, I notice something I'd missed before. Small indentations in the stone, each one perfectly sized to hold one tip of our crystal lanterns. They're positioned in a circle around the monument, and within each indentation, I can make out a carved symbol.

  I gesture at the lanterns we've gathered, then at the monument, trying to convey my thoughts through actions.

  Kor'ik tilts his head, his intelligent eyes following my movements. He approaches cautiously, studying the monument's base. His webbed fingers trace the carved symbols, and his expression shifts from fear to understanding.

  He points at the disk, then at the scattered light sources, then makes a gathering motion with his hands.

  I nod vigorously. We need to place the lights in these slots.

  But Hynnal's patience evaporates. He barks what must be orders, but no sound emerges. His hand rises instead, and I feel the Mark on my forehead pulse with a cold, sharp threat.

  The intention is clear, solve this, or be punished for the failure.

  I grab my lantern and move toward the monument, kneeling to examine the nearest indentation. The symbol carved within it matches one of the glowing symbols on my crystal's surface. A connection. A key.

  I place my lantern carefully into the slot.

  The effect is immediate. The crystal locks into place with a soft click, and a single ray of light shoots upward from it, striking the sun disk's surface. Where the beam touches, symbols begin to glow within the disk, tracing a path along one of the spiraling lines.

  But they fade quickly, pulsing weakly. Not enough power to sustain them.

  Kor'ik sees it too. His eyes widen with understanding, and he rushes to examine the other indentations, searching for the symbol that matches his own crystal. He finds it three positions clockwise from mine and sets his light source in place.

  Another beam of light, another section of the spiral illuminated. The symbols pulse brighter now, but still incomplete.

  The others catch on. Gorvash lumbers around the monument, squinting at the carved symbols until he finds his match. The Bog Goblin shuffles closer, comparing his small crystal to each indentation until he discovers where it belongs. Even the Silent Frogman, still shackled, drags his weighted limbs to contribute, placing his crystal in its designated slot.

  But Hynnal's pack hesitates. The Gnolls exchange uncertain glances, their predatory instincts warring with the unfamiliar concept of cooperation. Their leader stands apart, saber still drawn, watching with calculating eyes.

  The symbols within the disk pulse brighter with each crystal placed, but they're not complete. Several indentations remain empty, gaps in the pattern where no light reaches. We need more sources, and we need them positioned in the correct slots.

  I gesture frantically at the Gnolls, pointing at the empty indentations. The Stalker understands first and circles the monument until he finds the symbol matching his crystal, but then stops before filling the slot.

  Hynnal's authority over his pack is absolute, but even that faces a test here. His warriors look to him, waiting for permission or command. And the fearsome leader must make the choice to cling to dominance, or be part of the slave's solution.

  The moment stretches, tense and uncertain.

  Then Hynnal moves. Not with his usual aggressive certainty, but with grudging pragmatism. He stalks around the monument, examining each remaining slot with predatory focus, until he finds the one that matches his crystal. He places it firmly, and another beam of light joins the constellation.

  The remaining Gnolls follow their leader's example, each searching for their designated position.

  But we're still incomplete. Even with all our lights placed, there are empty slots where the pattern breaks. We simply don't have enough crystals from our surviving group.

  I study the glowing symbols more carefully, counting the indentations. Fifteen slots total while we only have twelve survivors.

  My gaze falls on the shadows of the deceased. The Gnoll warriors and the Bog Goblin, each a victim of their own allies.

  Gorvash sees where I'm looking. His expression hardens, but he nods slowly. Together, we move to retrieve the remaining crystals.

  The first crystal slides into place. Then the second. The pattern intensifies, the beams of light growing brighter, more focused.

  Finally, I place the last crystal into its designated slot.

  All fifteen positions are now filled and their beams converge on the sun disk.

  The effect is instantaneous and overwhelming.

  Every crystal flares with sudden brilliance, their light streaming upward through the sun disk's faceted surface. The beams merge and refract, creating a web of luminescence that fills the entire hall. The symbols within the disk complete their spiral, rushing from the outer edge toward the center with increasing speed and intensity.

  As the beams merge into that brilliant constellation, understanding finally comes to me.

  This trial was never about combat. We were stripped of our identities and forced into darkness where we couldn't distinguish friend from enemy. We killed each other because alone and in the dark, it was our instinct to do so.

  But the moment we were brought to light and we saw ourselves and each other again. Not as individuals but our identity as a group and cooperated, that's when we actually solved the trial.

  As the symbols reach the center of the sun disk, and with a sound like the breaking of ancient chains, the monument erupts with power.

  The sound of the rising sun.

  ____________________________________________________________________________

  It starts as a rumble, felt more than heard. The entire hall shakes, and for a terrifying moment I believe we've triggered its collapse. But then, those impossibly large windows showing the before-times city, begin to glow.

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  Light pours through them, golden and warm, nothing like the pale illumination we've been working with. Real sunlight, or as close to real as this place's magic can manage.

  The sun disk at the monument's center erupts with radiance so intense it's almost painful. The light expands outward in a wave, rushing across the polished marble floor with impossible speed.

  And where that wave passes, all darkness flees.

  I watch as the shadow-forms around me suddenly, violently resolve into full visibility. No more silhouettes. No more reflections. Just bodies, real and solid and clearly visible.

  Gorvash stands next to me, his thick scales covered in cuts and bruises I couldn't see before. His eyes are wide, also seeing me properly for the first time since the darkness fell.

  Kor'ik is across from us, and the Frogman looks even worse than I imagined. There is not a scratch on him, but he looks as if he’d been resurrected after being scared to death.

  The Silent Frogman is the least injured of any of us, his powerful legs apparently kept him mobile enough to avoid most attacks. But there's something in his eyes, a haunted quality that wasn't there before.

  The Gnolls fare slightly better, their natural combat training serving them well even in blindness. But Hynnal himself bears a massive gash across his chest, and two of his warriors are barely standing.

  My opponent, the stalker, still bears deep scratch marks on his face from our last encounter. Meanwhile, the wounds he inflicted upon me have already largely healed and I wonder if he noticed it.

  But then I see the bodies.

  They're exactly where we left them, but now fully visible.

  The first is a gruesome body of a Gnoll warrior, completely split from one shoulder to the hip in a single cut. Surely the victim of Hynnal’s saber.

  Another had his skull crushed by a single blow, and I have no clue of who could have done this.

  The Bog Goblin appears to have succumbed to multiple wounds, looking so small and fragile-looking in death.

  The wave of light continues expanding until it fills the entire hall, reaching the walls, climbing to the impossibly high ceiling. The crystalline lanterns that had gone dark blaze back to life. Every window shines with that golden radiance.

  And through those windows, I can no longer see the before-times city. Instead, I see ruins. Our ruins. The marsh surrounding us. Reality is bleeding back through.

  But strangely we're not in the marsh. We're still here, in this pristine hall. This preserved space held in stasis, surely by the magic that created this trial.

  A trial we somehow survived.

  From the monument, a deep sound comes forward. Not audible, exactly, but felt, resonating inside my bones, my core stone, my very being.

  "For Light, Truth. For Darkness, Nature."

  The meaning isn't explicitly translated, yet it feels as if it was imprinted within me.

  Then, as the light reaches its apex, something else happens. The wave begins to recede, pulling back toward the monument. But as it withdraws, it leaves something behind.

  Bodies. But not the ones who recently died. No, these are different.

  I rush to the nearest one and my heart stops. It's a Gnoll. Not one of ours. Or... is it? The features are similar but wrong somehow. Older? Younger? I can't tell.

  Kor'ik gasps, and I look up to see him standing over another body. A Frogman, wearing armor I don't recognize, dead from wounds that look weeks old despite the flesh being perfectly preserved.

  "What..." I start to ask, but the answer is already forming.

  The previous challengers. The ones who failed the trial. Their bodies preserved in this strange space, held in stasis along with everything else.

  How many expeditions have come here before us? How many failed?

  I take a few steps forward, really looking at the scope of what surrounds us.

  Hundreds. There must be hundreds of bodies scattered across this hall. Perhaps thousands if I could see into the deeper shadows at the edges.

  The math is staggering, terrifying. How many packs of warriors or teams of treasure hunters? Each one confident they'd succeed where others failed. Each one strong enough, clever enough, ruthless enough to claim whatever prize waited here.

  And every single one ended up as another preserved corpse on this marble floor.

  Besides various Frogmen and Gnolls, there are even my fellow Lizardmen, the imposing Marsh Orcs and a multitude of other creatures I have never seen or heard about before.

  A bat-like humanoid lies crumpled near the eastern wall, leathery wings torn and useless, its elongated snout frozen in a final screech.

  Closer to the monument, I spot what appears to be an insectoid creature, roughly the size of a grown Lizardman, but with a chitinous exoskeleton filled with menacing spines. The creature had four arms that ended in blade-like appendages. Whatever killed it had pierced directly through a weak point in the armor at its thorax.

  And there, near the far wall, I glimpse something massive. Just a limb visible, but it's easily twice as thick as Gorvash's entire body, covered in dark scales that shimmer even in death.

  How many different races and civilizations sent their warriors here, seeking whatever power this place promised?

  I wish I could learn more about all of them… maybe without having to become a slave for each one.

  The Gnolls see them too, and their reaction is immediate. Weapons raised, backing toward each other, eyes scanning for threats that aren't there.

  Hynnal's voice cuts through the panic, barking orders that restore some semblance of discipline. But even the scarred leader looks shaken as he surveys the hall of the dead.

  A sound draws my attention back to the monument. The sun disk has dimmed to a steady, comfortable glow, and something is happening at its base.

  ____________________________________________________________________________

  The stone itself opens.

  Not dramatically, not with grinding mechanisms or ancient locks finally releasing. It simply parts, smooth as water, revealing a hollow chamber within.

  And inside that chamber, something glows with a soft, ghostly light.

  Hynnal approaches first, his warriors flanking him. I can see the hunger in his movements, the greed that drove him to lead this expedition despite the dangers.

  He reaches into the chamber and withdraws an object.

  A crystal, roughly the size of my fist, cut in a perfect geometric pattern. It pulses with that same pale light as the lanterns, but deeper, more intense. More alive.

  "A core stone," I whisper, though I'm not sure how I know.

  But I do know. On some instinctive level, my own small, developing core recognizes what I'm seeing. This isn't just a fragment or a treasure. This is the fundamental, magical power of this world.

  Hynnal turns the crystal over in his clawed hands, and I can see the way it affects him. His eyes dilate, his breathing quickens and for the first time I can see a smile on his feral face.

  This is what he came here for. What he was willing to sacrifice his pack for.

  Hynnal's clawed fingers close around the crystal core, and that single action ripples through the hall like a shockwave.

  At first, it's subtle. A tremor in the air, a flicker in the light from the windows. But then things begin to change.

  The Gnoll from some previous expedition, suddenly starts decaying before my eyes. Flesh withers, bones yellow and crack, armor rusts and crumbles into powder. Within seconds, there's nothing left but dust scattered across the marble.

  "No!" Kor'ik's voice cracks with panic as he watches the disintegration spread.

  The other Gnolls, seeing Hynnal claim his prize, immediately scatter across the hall. They descend on the still preserved corpses like scavengers, ripping weapons from ancient hands, tearing armor from bodies that have waited decades or centuries for this moment.

  But despite their efficient looting efforts, everything they touch begins to crumble.

  A sword turns to rust in a warrior's grip. A breastplate disintegrates into flakes of corroded metal. The magic that held this place in stasis is unraveling, and time is catching up all at once.

  The Stalker manages to rip a glowing curved dagger from a Frogman’s corpse and for a heartbeat, the blade gives an otherworldly sheen, symbols etched along its length. His eyes widen in triumph.

  But then the symbols fade and the metal dulls. Within seconds, it's just a piece of corroded bronze, still sharp enough to cut but stripped of whatever magic it once held.

  Another warrior tears a bracer from a Lizardman's arm, one of my own kind, dead long before I was born. The armor looks intact, perfectly preserved, but the moment it leaves the corpse's wrist, age spots bloom across its surface like disease. The leather straps crumble. The metal plates crack and peel.

  Nothing survives. The magic that preserved these bodies, these artifacts, is unraveling along with everything else.

  Hynnal's warriors grow more desperate, more frantic. They claw at bodies, ripping away anything that might hold value. But it's like trying to hold water in their fists. Everything they touch becomes dust and rust and regret.

  Suddenly, the marble floor beneath us begins to crack. Through the widening fissures, I see water. Dark, murky marsh water.

  A Gnoll warrior screams as the body he's looting turns to dust in his hands, and then the water surges up through the cracks like a living thing and explodes upward with terrible violence.

  One moment, we're standing in a pristine hall. The next, water is erupting from every crack in the floor, from the walls, even seeming to pour down from the impossibly high ceiling.

  This current hits me like a tidal wave, knocking me off my feet. I tumble in the churning water, completely disoriented, unable to tell up from down.

  The water level rises impossibly fast. What was ankle-deep becomes waist-deep, only to cover our heads in the span of heartbeats.

  I see Gorvash's massive form swept past me, his powerful legs kicking futilely against the current. Kor'ik clings to a column, his throat sac expanded to full capacity, trying to save air.

  The Silent Frogman has already vanished, still shackled in those now deadly weights. Even the water adapted Goblin is being thrown around and failing to deal with the horrifying current.

  The Gnolls fare worst of all. Their heavy fur and dense muscles aren't built for swimming. I see one warrior still clutching a corroded sword even as he sinks, his eyes wide with primal terror. Another thrashes at the surface, trying to stay afloat while weighed down by his own equipment.

  Hynnal himself still grips the core stone, still pulsing with that steady, inner light. Whatever magic fuels it is intrinsic, not dependent on the preservation spell. His other hand striking out toward the surface. Even drowning, he won't release his prize.

  The current doesn't just rise, it propels us upward with violent force, like we're being expelled, pushed out like a geyser.

  My lungs burn. I catch one last glimpse of the sun disk monument as the water swallows it completely and its light finally dies. Whatever magic sustained this place is irrevocably broken.

  Then, through the churning chaos, a glow catches my eye. One of the crystal lanterns spiraling through the water nearby. My hand shoots out on instinct, fingers closing around the smooth crystal surface.

  The current intensifies even further, and all I can do is hold my breath, grip the crystal, and let the water carry me toward whatever awaits above.