The brilliant holographic map hung in the air above the Waystone, a silent, gleaming prize. It showed everything: the winding, treacherous paths up through the floating ruins, the locations of other Waystones glowing like blue stars, and most importantly, a large, sheltered platform marked Midway Sanctuary at the sector's peak. A place to rest. A beacon.
No one moved for a long moment. The only sounds were the fading grind of the Golem's dying core and the ragged breaths of the exhausted initiates.
Kael finally unclenched his hands. They were trembling. He looked at the sandy, gaping hole in the Golem's chest and felt a cold knot in his stomach. I did that. It wasn't a clean kill. It was an erasure.
"Stop staring at it like you kicked a puppy," Dominic said, his voice pulling Kael back. He was crouched, running a hand over the shattered remnants of his oak staff. There was no sentiment in his touch, just a tactical assessment. "It was a rock with bad programming. Now it's a rock with a hole. Better it than us."
"I know," Kael muttered, but the cold knot remained.
A cleared throat broke the silence. Justin stood nearby, having gently ushered Ellora back towards the main group. He offered Kael a waterskin. "Here. Your first major battle meld. The shakes are normal."
Kael took it, grateful. "Thanks. You weren't shaking."
Justin grinned, that easy, disarming smile returning. "I was. You just couldn't see it. My knees were trying to have a conversation with each other." He glanced over at Ellora, who was fussing over her returned spirit fox, checking it for damage. "You were amazing," he called to her, his voice softening. "You confused it completely."
Ellora looked up, her cheeks flushing a shade that rivaled her hair. She opened her mouth, then closed it, her earlier wariness at war with a glowing, giddy gratitude. "I... it was nothing. They're good at being annoying." The little flame-fox yipped in agreement, bouncing around her feet.
"Annoying?" Sophia's voice cut through the moment like a shard of ice. She had walked closer, her amethyst eyes scanning the holographic map with clinical precision. "A trivial assessment. You provided a measurable drop in the construct's combat efficiency for a period of 5.3 seconds. It was adequate distraction." Her gaze lifted from the map and swept over their group Kael, Dominic, Justin, Ellora. It was the look a jeweler might give a collection of rough, mismatched stones. "An inefficient but successful collaboration. Primarily due to Valore's straightforward force and..." her eyes landed on Kael, "...the anomalous disruption."
She didn't wait for a response. She turned to her own pristine cohort of nobles, who were gathering behind her. "The path is clear. The Sanctuary is our objective. We move. Now." And with that, she led her group away, taking a route that branched off from the main path marked on the map, a slightly longer but less cluttered way. She never looked back.
"Charming," Dominic deadpanned, finally standing up and abandoning the pieces of his staff. "She's a real people person."
"Sophia is... very focused," Justin said diplomatically, though he rubbed the back of his neck. "She's not wrong, though. The Sanctuary is the next logical goal. And with this map..." He looked at the small, mixed group around him Kael, Dominic, Ellora, and the two other commoners who had stuck with Ellora. "We should stick together. The map is an advantage, but it makes us a target. A group is harder to hit."
Ellora's commoner friends, a lanky boy with Air affinity and a sturdy girl with defensive Water magic, nodded vigorously. They looked at Justin with something like awe.
Kael felt the logic of it. Alone, he was a curiosity to be dissected or a threat to be eliminated. With Dominic, he was a pair of targets. With this growing, weird group... he was part of a problem. That felt safer.
"Alright," he said, his voice firmer now. "Together."
As they gathered before the map, studying the best route, a figure detached from the shadows near the archway. Daniel Frost Bane didn't approach the group. He stood ten feet away, his crimson eyes fixed on the hologram, memorizing it. His expression was unreadable.
Justin noticed him. "Bane! That was a clean strike on its stabilizer rune. We could use your eyes on the path ahead. Shadow walking is better than any scout."
Daniel's head turned slowly. He looked at Justin, then at the rest of them, his gaze lingering for a microsecond on Kael. "A group is slow. Noisy." His voice was flat.
"Also harder to pick off," Dominic countered, not looking up from the map. "And we have the only complete map. Your choice. Wander in the dark, or walk with the torch."
A flicker of something calculation, not annoyance passed behind Daniel's eyes. He weighed the tactical value of the map against the burden of cooperation. The map won. He gave a single, slight nod and moved to stand at the very edge of their group, a silent, watchful satellite.
The alliance, such as it was, was formed. Not out of friendship, but necessity: The Map-Bearers.
The path ahead was a brutal test of endurance and the map's accuracy. They navigated narrow, crumbling causeways that vibrated with each step, avoiding patches of fog that coalesced into biting spectral flies. They used the map to bypass a whole section of the spire humming with dangerous energy, marked on the hologram as "Mana Surge Zone."
The teamwork was clumsy but real. Justin and Dominic took point, Justin's sword flaring to cut through animate thorn vines, Dominic using sharp, concussive bursts of earth magic to collapse unstable walkways behind them, slowing any potential pursuers. Ellora's spirits scouted ahead, their cheerful chimes warning of hidden pitfalls. Daniel would occasionally vanish, only to reappear moments later and give a terse, one-word warning: "Ambush." or "Clear."
Kael walked in the middle, feeling both protected and useless. His power wasn't for this, this careful, step-by-step traversal. It was a earthquake, not a scalpel.
"You are thinking like a hammer," Vaelthryx's voice murmured in his mind, a rumble of dry amusement. "You have the understanding of the clay itself. Feel the path. Is it eager to hold weight, or tired and ready to crumble?"
Kael focused, letting his strange senses drift out. He didn't see magic; he felt intent. The ancient stone of the spire wasn't just rock; it was a memory of weight and purpose. He stopped the group before they crossed a beautifully ornate bridge of white stone.
"Don't," he said, his voice quiet.
"Why? It's not on the map as a hazard," Justin said, checking the hologram.
"It's... sad," Kael said, struggling for the words. "It wants to be beautiful, not useful. It'll break if we treat it like a bridge."
Dominic raised an eyebrow but didn't argue. He picked up a large chunk of rubble and tossed it onto the bridge. The moment the weight settled, the pristine white stone let out a musical sigh and dissolved into a shower of harmless, glowing dust. Beneath it was the ugly, sturdy vine-and-stone bridge they'd used earlier.
Ellora stared at Kael, her blue eyes wide. "You can... talk to bridges?"
"No," Kael said quickly, his face heating. "I just... felt it was showing off."
Dominic snorted. "Show-off bridge." He led them across the safe one.
They continued, a fragile rhythm building between them. The silence was broken by Justin's encouraging shouts, Ellora's worried questions, Dominic's dry commentary, and Daniel's sparse warnings.
After what felt like hours, the path opened up. The oppressive, fragmented architecture gave way to a single, massive floating platform, bathed in gentle, golden light from a permanent artificial sunstone embedded high above. Lush, resilient moss carpeted the ground, and crystalline springs bubbled up in small pools. At the far end stood a large, intact pavilion with glowing restorative runes on its floor, the Midway Sanctuary.
A collective sigh of relief went through the group. They'd made it.
Ellora's commoner friends sprinted ahead with a whoop, collapsing onto the soft moss. Justin smiled, sheathing his sword. "See? Together."
They trudged into the sanctuary. The pavilion was empty. The restoration runes hummed with a gentle energy that soothed aching muscles and calied frazzled nerves. For the first time since the trial began, the tension leaked away.
It was a trap.
They were all halfway across the open plaza, lulled by the promise of safety, when the attack came.
Not from monsters. From above.
The ornate, gilded balconies and broken windows of the ruins surrounding the sanctuary plaza, which they had assumed were empty, suddenly teemed with figures. Corvin Hale stood front and center on the highest balcony, his face twisted in vindictive triumph. He hadn't taken the main path or Sophia's path. He'd used his Bronze-veined resources and sheer spite to climb the hard way, to get here first, and to lay in wait.
"Welcome, Map-Bearers!" Corvin's voice echoed, poisoned with mockery. "We've been so bored waiting. Thanks for bringing the map to us. Now..." He raised a hand.
All around the plaza, runes flared to life on the ground not restorative ones. Trap runes. Glowing chains of force erupted from the moss, aiming to snare ankles and wrists. From the shadows, his lackeys the ones Justin had faced plus more unleashed a volley of focused, non-lethal but debilitating spells: globs of sticky, mana-draining slime; waves of disorienting sonic pulses; nets of crackling, paralyzing energy.
It wasn't to kill. It was to capture, humiliate, and steal.
The Sanctuary wasn't a safe zone.
It was a kill box.
And they were right in the middle of it.