The next morning, the lifeless grey chamber began to brighten—not with sunlight, nor with any visible source of illumination. The pale stone walls simply began to glow with a low, ambient light, like dawn trying to rise in a room that had forgotten the sky. A soft jingling echoed throughout the chamber, light and rhythmic, as if small silver bells were being rung from some unseen corner. It was enough to stir the slumbering students.
One by one, they woke.
There was no chatter, no stretching or idle banter, only the sound of rustling cloth and shifting gear. Most students sat up with blank expressions, rubbing sleep from their eyes with mechanical motions. The night had been quiet—too quiet—and few had truly rested.
Reed pushed himself upright, his back aching from the rough stone floor beneath the thin fabric of his sleeping roll. His breath fogged faintly in the air. The room was cold. That hadn't changed.
Fifty students now filled the chamber—some in clusters, others spaced apart, clinging to what little privacy they could manage in such an alien place. Reed's eyes drifted toward the far corner where the older students—the ones who had been here before the rest—sat quietly eating from food packs provided by Yanis's group. These older survivors bore a different kind of weariness, one that hadn't been earned in a day or even a week. Their eyes never stopped moving. Their postures were tight, shoulders hunched like they expected the walls themselves to attack.
Reed saw it in the younger students too—the fear. Especially in the first-years, their expressions flickering with unease as they glanced toward the grim-faced veterans. Even his own group, hardened after training and trials, seemed muted. Marek stared at his boots. Labbus sat cross-legged, muttering something under her breath. Still, unspoken hope lingered.
How bad could it be? Reed caught the thought in his own mind. He could feel it rippling through the air, a silent current among the group. Sure, they said it was hell, but they only had five people. We have fifty. Fifty of the best young mages in the kingdom. Surely we can do something.
But no one said it aloud. No one wanted to jinx it.
Reed pulled on his outer coat and adjusted the straps of his satchel. This limbo they were in—this so-called waiting room—was gnawing at his nerves. Time felt warped here, without sunlight or clocks, just bell chimes and the fading afterimage of nightmares.
He needed information.
Steeling himself, he made his way to the corner where the student in the tattered blanket—the one who had spoken the night before—sat with the others. They looked up warily as he approached, eyes sharp beneath layers of grime and fatigue.
"I need to know more," Reed said calmly, respectfully. "About the trials. About what's coming."
They didn't answer at first. One of them, a girl with a faded red headband and a long scar down her cheek, turned away. The boy with the blanket looked him over, his gaze not hostile, but guarded. "You don't want to know," he muttered.
"I do."
"Trust me. You don't."
"I won't ask twice," Reed said, but he kept his voice gentle. "But if we have a chance to survive, we need to know what you know. If there's anything we can learn from your experience—"
The girl scoffed. "Experience won't save you. Just slows down the dying."
"Let him speak," the blanket-wrapped boy interrupted. He sighed, then sat up straighter. "Fine. You want to know? Here's what we've figured out."
Reed listened carefully as the student explained. This room, this chamber, was like a waiting area. There was no exit, no door, no window. Just walls and floor and that cursed glowing ceiling. They had tried to dig, blast, melt their way out—nothing worked.
The imp came when it wanted, always appearing in a plume of purple mist, always delivering a twisted speech laced with cryptic warnings and nonsensical words—some of which physically hurt to hear. After that, the next day, at around the same time, they would be taken.
Teleported.
Thrown without warning into what could only be described as living nightmares.
Each "scene" was different. Sometimes it was a forest swarming with monsters. Sometimes a ruined castle, haunted and cold. One time, they had been dropped into a blizzard with no cover, no tools, only their magic and each other.
The objectives changed too. Survival was a common one—last a day, last three. Others required slaying creatures, finding relics, or completing puzzles that made little sense. And on occasion, they were told to form alliances with entities they didn't even understand.
They weren't real trials, not yet. The imp had called them "warm-ups," and even those had claimed lives.
Reed frowned. "What about the artifacts? You mentioned them before."
"They're rare. Hidden in the trials. Sometimes in caves. Sometimes guarded by things no sane person would face. But the power they give…" He trailed off. "We lost one of ours trying to get a floating orb. We didn't even know what it did. Just that it pulsed. Drew your attention."
"Like a lure," Reed muttered.
The student nodded grimly. "Exactly."
When they finished speaking, there was a moment of silence. Reed gave a quiet thank you and stood to leave.
None of them asked questions about him. He was glad. Because if they had… he wouldn't have known what to say.
He was hiding something now. Something he didn't understand himself.
A connection.
When the imp had first appeared, Reed had felt something stir within him. Something cold and ancient. When it spoke in that garbled language, when it vanished in that haze of purple mist, something in Reed's chest had recognized it.
It was the same recognition he had felt after that letter. The Sacred Trials.
The words rang in his mind like a tuning fork, resonating with a part of him he hadn't known existed until that moment.
Why did he feel drawn to this place?
Why did he feel... like he belonged here?
He didn't have the answers yet. But he would find them.
No matter what.