Outside the cave, the wind crooned its constant song. Eoarn sat with his legs folded beneath him, waiting for his master to visit. His twitch was back, but this was a relatively mild day. He felt more sane than usual. He raised his slightly jerking left hand and patted the ground, trying to reassure himself with the cool stone.

After long hours of this same task, the stone floor had been worn perfectly into the shape of his body. The flat chamber had been cleared of most stones and stalagmites, so he now sat in the middle of a stone belly. Due to his weakness, his meditation dwelling was close to the surface of the mountain.

When he had first arrived, he was overjoyed. He believed that while the constant noises from the wind were slightly undesirable, he would grow used to them.

He, of course, was wrong. Honestly, Eoarn wished he could hear the wind a little bit better. That way it wouldn’t sound like whispers.

Sometimes he had nightmares that the mountain kept him here for so long because it was steadily digesting him. The wind was the glee of the grand pattern as he died here. Eoarn might have worn down the floor, but what had changed within himself in that same time period? When was the last time he had the desire to leave the mountain and see the rest of the Nexus?

He pushed those thoughts away and tried to focus. The more he allowed those thoughts to fester, the worse his twitch would become. Upon the wall in front of him, a replica of the official tiled platform sat, filled with the base symbols for experiencing the Grand Pattern. Eoarn engaged in intense image training while he waited, dancing across the illuminated tiles with a perfect grace that he wished he could capture with his body.

The whispering of the wind was static, pulling at his attention. Just a few tugs, so even in his imagination, he failed bitterly.

Soon, the knocking of a cane interrupted both his image training and the constant noise of the wind around the mountain. A short while later, his master came out of the shadowed passage that led deeper into the mountain, rubbing his beard.

“Master,” Eoarn whispered as he bowed his head. The hoarseness of his voice surprised him. “What is your will?”

“Oh, don’t mind me, there is just a new recruit that I wish you to welcome with some of the hospitality of the inner areas. Obviously, this is no ordinary new recruit, perhaps you’ve heard of the Head Drill Sergeant? Very well connected, very talented. Surely an excellent addition, should he stay here for an extended amount of time. So we wish to keep his stay here as pleasant as possible. I trust you will handle the situation?”

Eoarn bowed his head forward until his forehead touched the cool ground. “Of course, master.”

He stayed there until his master thumped away, the noise of his cane vanishing from the winding interior tunnels of this cursed mountain. Then Eoarn considered his master’s words. He couldn’t help but shiver. Hospitality of the inner areas… a fight to the death. As for a pleasant stay, the only pleasant stay on this mountain is a short one. So he wants me to either drive him away or kill him.

I have no choice. A swift death is better than the eternity that stretches before me...

Eoarn felt no qualms about killing; to survive as long as he had within this mountain, he had to kill some of his closest early companions. His hands were well and truly stained with blood. And the process would be simple. No matter how powerful an individual was outside of the mountain, their images would be restricted by this place.

Unless this Head Drill Sergeant was as powerful as the creator of the Grand Pattern, his images would be perfectly useless here. For the first time in a long time, Eoarn felt some anticipation before a clash. None of his usual fears manifested themselves. This was a foe that he would be able to handle.

Still, Eoarn took his sweet time as he stood. The task was easy, but the arrangements were harder. Groaning and rubbing his stiff neck, he walked away from the passage that led into the depths of the mountain and approached the cave mouth. His left arm continued to twitch. As he walked toward the surface, the song of the wind rose to a deafening howl.

There were two ways of traveling through the Mountain of the Grand Pattern. The first was through the interior passages, the second was trooping up and down the outside. However, many of the interior junctions required you to pass a test in order to be allowed access. You only needed to take the test once, but the difficulties were not linear. Some of the lower hubs were insanely difficult.

Meanwhile, outside you would encounter the Grand Pattern made real in the wind. You had to read the surroundings and step very precisely to remain safe from those potent natural energies. The price of failure was less steep outside, too; misreading the pattern and getting blasted with wind would not result in your death, usually just a heavy wound. But also the winds around the mountain were fickle. Sometimes the patterns were manageable, while other times only those with a death wish would proceed outside when the wind was forged into both thunder and lightning by the force of the storm churning above.

Eoarn listened to the winds for several seconds, trying to judge their power. His eyes were unfocused as he considered the blank grey air. The current winds were quite difficult, but from the constant cadence, there at least wasn’t much variation in the pattern. Eoarn bent down to touch his toes and then spread his arms wide to ready his joints for the precise movements that he would need to descend.

How long have I bottled myself up here, simply image training?

He stepped to the entrance of the cave and cocked his head to the side. He tried not to look at the long scars that marred the grey stone in every direction. His senses spread outward and tried to map out the organic and rapidly changing flows of wind that filled the sky. Many of his fellow trainees, more talented than Eoarn by far, had been broken and shattered because they had wandered outside after relying on an earlier impression of the wind.

The sharp lines of the rock on the exterior of the mountain were entirely shaped by the even sharper winds that cut back and forth in constant churning motion above the mountain. Not that dodging the winds could exactly replicate the delicate movements of the Grand Pattern, but the same sort of senses were required to survive. It was an invisible and churning meat grinder.

And Eoarn had painstakingly trained until he had barely enough to survive this place. Only to feel himself sinking deeper and deeper into a swamp of fear. It was survival, of a sort.

Eoarn pressed his lips together, tried not to let his twitch bother him, and began to walk down the slope.

He didn’t need to remain outside for the entire perilous journey to the bottom, just about halfway. His relief at getting out of the winds made him collapse as soon as got back into the cave system; he spread out his fingers and felt the cool and reassuring stone with both palms. Blood dripped down his arm from a wound he had earned by being just a hair too slow as the howling storm of wind blades had intensified.

But Eoarn felt a flash of pride. My image training wasn’t useless. I believe I made a breakthrough at perceiving the pattern.

After taking several deep breaths, he pushed himself to his feet and walked through the dark passages that he had cleared while he had been more active in the mountain. A few times he passed some other walking individuals, exchanging sharp-eyed glances in the flickering light of torches posted along the cave walls. When he saw the tension in the set of the other person’s shoulders, Eoarn could relax; the people you truly needed to fear in this mountain were those that walked as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

At the base of the mountain, a cave mouth fed directly into a trench. That way, the new arrivals didn’t need to face the dangers of the winds before they were trapped here. Or more honestly, the arrangement was made so that the initiates weren’t scared off by the intense environment of this place.

Eoarn proceeded out the cave and down into the trench, ignoring the fingers of the wind that scratched at the opening a meter above his head, desperate to reach him and tear him to pieces. The sky was dark and ominous, more so than he remembered. The passage was only a meter wide, but he was used to the tight space. And besides, this walk outside of the mountain could be considered a break for him.

The trench eventually brought him to a ravine that housed the teleportation device. Several large reinforced outcroppings had been installed to blunt the force of the winds in the area. Eoarn raised his head and squinted at the son; his quarry would not be here for another hour. So he sat down and meditated.

Randidly Ghosthound, the talented Head Drill Sergeant, arrived exactly on time. Eoarn opened his eyes and stood after the teleporter discharged and released the man out into this special zone. He was tall and well-muscled, with black hair that hung down to his jaw. His emerald eyes were intense and his feet were bare. A confidence radiated off of him that seemed to suggest that he was prepared to meet whatever the world would throw his way.

And yet you came here. So you are just as doomed as the rest of us. So pointless.

“Welcome,” Eoarn said, again surprised by how much his vocal cords had faded from disuse. He coughed into his hand and then continued speaking, folding his left arm behind his body to hide the twitch. “This is the holy mountain for those wishing to understand the Grand Pattern. And I will be the one testing whether you are worthy to remain here.”

Almost instantly, the Ghosthound raised an eyebrow at Eoarn. He shrugged in response. “There is no point in hiding it. To climb this mountain is to step on corpses. If you are unable to survive here, it is best to find out early. In a very unofficial capacity, I will be that test.”

“I was invited to a training camp here. Although I understood that the camp would be dangerous, I assumed I was already accepted.” The Ghosthound finally said.

Eoarn hopped up onto one of the stone ledges around the ravine and gestured for the Ghosthound to follow. He felt pity for this talented young man. Eoarn almost wished someone would have fought against him in his early days, to warn him away. “You can consider this to be part of the training camp. If you lose in this duel against me, you may die. Come, I at least owe you an explanation before we begin.”

To his surprise, the Ghosthound followed him without comment.

They exited the ravine and stood on the bone-dry surface ground. Immediately, the wind was amongst them, forcing itself between their bodies and ruffling their clothes. Eoarn turned to look at Randidly and raised his voice so it would carry about the wind. “Here, the wind is god. And the wind moves along to the mysteries of the Grand Pattern. You’ll note that your images are suppressed; here it is only the power of the wind and your understanding of the pattern that is important. You can only fight by borrowing that natural perfection of this place. Please, familiarize yourself with the surroundings. I am in no rush.”

“And when I’m familiar?” The Ghosthound tilted his head to the side.

“Then we fight to death or surrender,” Eoarn said solemnly. His heart was pounding. The old adrenaline was rising through him. “It is the way of the mountain.”

I hope you don’t surrender. The twitching in his left hand finally began to stop, as bloodlust filled him. Killing you is my chance to regain my past self. Before this mountain began to devour me.

Most individuals had one of two reactions to the suppression of the mountain: panic or fury. The Ghosthound just nodded, then raised his eyes to study the wind currents that moved above their heads. In this place, the winds were almost gentle. They would buffet and shove, but never cut or kill, like the winds around the mountain would so gleefully do.

“Alright, I’m ready,” The Ghosthound said after a few minutes.

Eoarn gestured. You should have taken longer to familiarize yourself. My condolences.“Feel free to take the first attack.”

The Ghosthound shrugged and began to levitate off the ground. Eoarn opened his mouth to recommend that he stay nearer to the ground, where the outcroppings would protect him, but those words died in his mouth as the Ghosthound boldly floated upward several meters-

-and was immediately smashed with the wind. Yet the Ghosthound barely even seemed to feel the cutting stroke of the wind, even when thick, image-reinforced blasted moved together and began to grind at him from every direction. Somehow, he simply endured through it. Eoarn couldn’t believe his eyes.

Then the Ghosthound raised his right hand and began to spin a finger. Eoarn could almost see strands of the violent wind peeling off from the horrifying storm that raged above their heads and surrounding his digit. After only five seconds, his entire arm was sleeved in a whirlwind. And once it had reached that size, the speed at which it gathered power moved sharply upward.

After only five minutes of study, this talented young man rode and channeled the natural energies that drove Eoarn mad. Being so casually outclassed-

Howling of the force this new arrival gathered seemed to speak to him. You were never meant to be anything but fertilizer.

The Ghosthound flicked his finger and all that force was unleashed. Eoarn simply watched it come. He didn’t bother to defend himself at all. His twitch had returned. Why should he struggle, when he was so, so exhausted?

BOOOOOM!