Alexander James Patel Overview Affiliations Linosa Town Level 0 Class None Status HP 0/120 SP - MP - Attributes STR 11 CON 12 DEX - END - INT 1 WIS - LCK 0

Alex turned his gaze away from the mental table, nodding to himself. It seemed as if an optimal solution would reward a bonus point in that trial’s stat without ending it, while an aberrant solution would end the trial and award a bonus point toward a different stat instead. It made sense, in a roundabout way. Alex knew that what he’d done in the constitution trial had embraced the spirit of the trial in the fullest. Now he was wondering what the optimal solution in the strength trial would have been. Proper form? Lifting the roof all the way every time? Throwing the roof around like a beach ball?

Hmmm. Well, I’ll want to try find the optimal solution every time then.

It seemed his HP score, also provisional, was based on his constitution. He wasn't sure what to do with that information yet, but he assumed that SP, or stamina, would be tied to endurance, and that MP, or mana, must therefore be linked to wisdom. For now, they were just numbers.

He was currently bathing in the golden pool, the remaining shreds of reverence he’d had toward this place discarded after the living nightmare he'd just been through. Even restored by the pool, Alex felt harrowed. He still shivered, traumatised, when he thought about the experience. Thankfully, none of the acid had remained on his person when he’d reappeared in the atrium. He didn't care that it might have been useful, he never wanted to feel that stuff again.

I’ll never be able to look at an ant the same way.

So bad was his state of mind immediately after the trial that he'd contemplated giving up, fearful of the horrors that might lie beyond the next door. But there was no way out of this damn atrium, and the mysterious presence hadn’t responded to any of his angry thoughts or shouts over the last hour. Over time, he'd calmed down a bit.

There was nothing more to be done, and he was running out of time. Alex eventually stepped out of the pool, again electing to leave half his supplies with the golden box on the atrium floor. He slipped his tunic on and grabbed a half-length of cord and his shiv, then walked up to the dexterity portal, shivered briefly, and stepped in.

After the usual sensation of travelling through some kind of blackness, Alex found himself at one end of a wide, rectangular hall. Its roof was far above him, and it was dimensioned with a span of around five metres and a length of perhaps fifty. One Olympic swimming pool in length, he reflected, using the stupid unit of measurement favoured by current-affairs programs. He supposed those had ended with the flare as well, so that was something he could be thankful about.

Welcome to the Trial of Dexterity. Avoid traps to touch the orb. Commencing Stage One.

A trip-wire snapped into existence across the centre of the hall, a very obvious thick line of red thread. At the other end of the hall, a glass orb and pedestal appeared in a similar manner.

Ah. So it is an obstacle course.

Alex’s heart actually soared with the realisation. He’d been petrified of another experience like the previous trial, but it seemed that this one was more of a test of skill than it was of tolerance. He might not be the most athletic guy, but an obstacle course was a familiar concept.

First things first, he needed to activate his ring. Frustratingly, the limited range meant its effect had a diameter of around six metres, far less than what would be required to search this entire hall.

So Alex began to probe the room manually while ignoring the orb for now, gently stepping over the trip-wire. There didn’t seem to be any sort of time limit in here, so he figured he could actually take the time to search for the key manually before using his ring. Hell, he might even have to spend a couple hours in here to continually recharge it if he was unlucky.

The room was made from the usual white marble, patterned into large bricks this time. There were no obvious compartments anywhere, and the bricks were all flush with each other. The tripwire was anchored to the wall itself, seeming to emerge seamlessly from the material on either side. And after walking the length of the room, Alex realised he had no clue where the key might be.

I wonder, is it related to the nature of the trial? To find the strength key, I had to use strength. The constitution key required me to reach into an ant burrow, which might have been very painful during a later stage. Maybe this one requires dexterity somehow?

The nature of the tripwire seemed consistent with the notions he had of dexterity from D&D and video games, and made him think of traps and hidden compartments – things that rogues could work through.

Hmmm. I’ll check the walls. I have time.

Alex did another lap of the room, this time running his hand along the bricks in the side walls at chest height. He pushed and tapped, seeking hollow compartments with no results. Then he did another lap, this time focusing on the bricks at head height. Sighing, he repeated the time-consuming process on his knees, crawling along as he patted the walls, standing only to step over the joke of a tripwire.

I wonder if it only shows up at later stages? Although all the keys so far have been accessible from stage one.

He’d been getting worried as he began to loop back along the wall, but at last his tentative knocking gave off a hollow impression. It was coming from a brick near to the ground in the section of hall which he’d arrived in. When he pushed at the offending brick, he was rewarded with a click as it slid out of the wall, revealing a small drawer holding the dexterity key. Alex smiled, tucked it into his belt, and then went and touched the orb at the end of the hall to complete the stage.

Stage One Complete. Do you wish to leave the Trial?

Obviously not. He took his hand off the orb, and it vanished.

Commencing Stage Two.

A second red tripwire popped into existence right next to the first and slightly higher up. The orb now sat at the other end of the hall.

Oh, I get it.

The next stages passed quickly, a blur of jumping, rolling, and cautiously edging around.

Commencing Stage Eight.

Alex had been enjoying dodging around obstacles until the lethal ones had begun appearing. By stage seven the hall had become a mess of tripwires, pressure plates, and traps. Worse, the newer tripwires were thinner and almost transparent in colour, while the pressure plates that had started appearing would have been almost impossible to spot among the bricks making up the floor if Alex hadn’t been expecting that sort of thing.

On stage six, the first sawblade had appeared, moving along a slot on the floor like in an old-school video game and making an ungodly whirring noise as it cut back and forth. Alex was almost stunned by how cliché this trial was, but found himself loving it.

Every new obstacle would change the nature of the route Alex needed to take, impacting the areas he could land jumps in, step over, or crawl through. In previous runs, there had been safe spots in the hall which he spotted in advance and ran to, using them for rest and planning. But every new obstacle seemed to occupy one of them, forcing him to coordinate his movements more and more continuously with every run.

Nonetheless, this trial was kinda fun!

Perhaps he’d just become desensitised to near-death experiences over the past few days, but he was shaking far less than usual with adrenaline, and the experience almost felt like a detailed VR game. Adding variety, the direction of the route he took would reverse every stage as he went back and forth through the hall.

Alex was confident that as long as his luck held out, he could make it to stage ten even if he sustained some injuries doing so. The comfort of having a healing pool available on exit meant he didn’t really care if he got nicked by a sawblade or spike trap, as long as he could get himself out after and end across the trial hall.

But now he was wondering how he might unlock the optimal solution for a bonus point, or even an aberrant solution. Things were getting dangerous, and some of these obstacles were potentially lethal if he landed wrong. He had around two and a half metres of cord left and felt that now could be the ideal time to use it in the spirit of the trial.

Alex rolled under the last few tripwires, timing his approach to avoid a sawblade which was on its way back towards him, and tapped his hand on the waiting orb.

Stage Eight Complete. Do you wish to leave the Trial?

He sat by the wall after the orb vanished, knowing by now that a non-answer meant the next stage would begin automatically. This trial was his favourite so far, but he couldn't afford complacency. Fun theme or not, one slip-up could kill him.

Commencing Stage Ten.

The orb reappeared on the opposite side of the hall, and a new type of trap appeared near the centre-right of the hall, a grate which seemed to billow flames every few seconds. There were no other obvious changes, but Alex knew that there’d be a range of new, razor-thin wires around the place, and perhaps even a few more pressure plates. The obvious traps were the least dangerous.

He'd begun using his cord to sound out wires in front of him, as it would get caught on them and occasionally trigger traps prematurely. He watched as, immediately after the stage reset, a blade flicked out of one wall above a pressure plate he’d left his dirt sack on. The blade wedged there; the trap triggered pre-emptively. He’d been doing this every run, as it made his pathing far easier.

Alex was hoping that disarming traps somehow would get him the optimal solution, and he’d abandoned his sack of dirt in this position deliberately. While triggered traps reset with every stage, the sack would simply trigger this one as soon as the stage reset. He’d left a little dirt on two other sensitive plates, although his attempts at pouring some into the slots in the ground had failed to stop the sawblades.

Alex identified one of the safe points created above one of the disarmed pressure plates and began to duck through traps and obstacles on his way there. He had a close shave when a new pressure plate triggered a flame trap at eye level, the flames shooting out right in front of where he’d have been if he hadn’t frozen the minute he’d felt the plate under his front foot.

Fuck. That one would have killed me. This is getting very dangerous.

It was taking more and more courage to commence each successive run.

I’ll tap out in a stage or two. I just need to be sure I’m doing this optimally.

Alex slapped his hand onto the orb for the tenth time, resting there as his nerves calmed back down.

Stage Ten Complete. Do you wish to leave the Trial?

Not yet. Soon, but not yet. I have things to test.

He kept his hand on the orb, waiting. He smiled when it became apparent that the next stage wasn't going to begin yet. This confirmed a theory he’d been working on – even after express confirmation, the next stage wouldn’t commence until he released the orb.

Instead of letting go, he lifted the orb off its pillar. He’d investigated it earlier, finding it unremarkable. A couple of kilos of smooth, cloudy glass, the orb was roughly the size of his head. But this time, he took care to keep the strange artifact in contact with his skin. Alex turned back toward the stage he’d just completed.

I wonder what happens if I begin the next stage while already next to the objective?

It turned out that redoing stage ten backwards with the orb in his hands significantly increased the difficulty. He was far less mobile now, and had to take great care not to drop it. One portion of the course required him to traverse a set of monkey bars over a pit which had appeared on stage four (and been filled with spikes on stage five). He would then have to drop onto a narrow ledge between it and a second, jumpable pit which had appeared on stage seven.

Standing in a safe area he’d created just before the first pit, Alex tucked the orb under his tunic, keeping it in contact with the skin of his stomach. Then, he carefully adjusted his cord belt to keep it pressed there before he started traversing the monkey bars.

He dropped onto the ledge and decided to attempt the jump over the next pit with the orb in his tunic, but his lack of balance caused him to slip up when landing... triggering a trip-wire. Fortunately, the spike-darts connected to the wire were propelled from the walls at body height and sailed over his prone body before sinking back into the walls opposite.

I wonder if I could have snagged some of those for later. He’d avoided triggering traps deliberately for obvious reasons, but supposed there was some potential in harvesting loose components. He wrote the idea off as too dangerous.

Finally scrambling back at the other end of the hall, Alex withdrew the orb from his tunic. It had bruised his stomach badly when he’d fallen, winding him. Wincing his eyes closed with hope, he released his grip on the orb and allowed it to wink out of existence.

Commencing Stage Eleven.

Behind him a deadly pendulum appeared over the second spike pit, swinging back and forth with alarming speed. Alex caught the glint of razor wire as it sprang into existence around the course, ruining one of his safe spots. Alarmingly, one strand glinted right where he’d fallen on his return journey.

Good thing I didn’t drop the orb there then.

But most satisfyingly, the stage eleven completion orb appeared right next to him. He smiled, then slapped his palm back onto it. While he’d been anticipating an aberrant solution, the words he heard next exceeded expectations.

Stage Eleven Complete.

Aberrant solution detected. Automatically concluding the trial, awarding bonus point. Optimal solution also detected. Awarding additional bonus point. Congratulations, you survived.

Trial of Dexterity Complete.

As soon as he got back to the atrium, Alex slotted his new key into the golden box. Disarming traps seemed to trigger the optimal solution, and his bonus point for the aberrant solution had gone to INT again, probably for working out how to lower the stage difficulty. Thirteen points from one trial!

Still on a high from his highest point yield yet, Alex loaded up his second and final sack of dirt, healed up in the pool and, before he could hesitate, walked straight into the endurance trial.

Again, he found himself in a hallway, although this one seemed to extend without end in both directions.

Welcome to the Trial of Endurance. Do not allow the failed trial participant to touch you. Commencing Stage One.

A, groaning, rotten corpse that could only be described as some sort of zombie began to materialise behind him. It wore a bloodstained, torn robe like his, and was staring at Alex with dead, black eyes. Slowly, it began limping towards him, flexing what appeared to be razor-sharp, metal talons on its right hand. Gaping wounds that looked like slashes and bite-marks covered its body, and its eyes conveyed a sense of hunger. When it opened its mouth, he glimpsed rows of metallic, pointed teeth.

“What the shit!” Alex’s surprised exclamation had no impact on the zombie, which was taking some time as it closed the distance between them. Despite its slow, unthreatening limp, his heart seemed like it was about to beat through his chest.

Failed trial participant?

But despite his shock and mild horror, he wasn’t going to make the same mistake he’d made in the strength trial. He activated his [Seeker’s Ring], having noted that every key so far had been accessible from the beginning of its trial. A golden thread appeared immediately.

Yep, the key is on the ground right where the zombie appeared.

If he’d started running, he’d have missed it. Instead, he baited the slow and lurching zombie closer, then ducked around it and scooped the key off the ground. It must have literally appeared right under the zombie.

The zombie lurched closer again, and Alex dodged. He could dance around the zombie for hours at this pace. He had no idea what would progress the stage, however, and had been dodging now for several minutes. He wondered if he would beat the zombie in a fight.. but it had claws and teeth, and more worringly the instructions had said not to let it touch him.

The prompts for stage two interrupted his thoughts. Once he accepted, the zombie got just a little faster.

Commencing Stage Six.

He’d had to drop dirt sack number two on the ground several stages back in an attempt to conserve energy. Alex sped up his jog, breathing heavily. He hated cardio. The zombie was using all fours now, limping along the ground with alarming speed in a weird crawl-run behind him. The hallway they ran through had no end in sight.

He was going to score poorly in this trial, and he knew it. Back on Earth, he’d been able to run three kilometres reliably, five if he pushed himself. One of his best mates ran marathons.

Shit. He’d crush this trial.

By contrast, Alex’s fitness was pretty average, and he knew he’d need to scrape bonus points from this trial somehow. He had absolutely no idea what the optimal solution was this time but had a couple of strong ideas for aberrant ones.

Strength – kill or maim the zombie... without touching it?

Dexterity – trap the zombie.

He knew from the previous trial that dexterity was all about traps, and he was pretty certain the idea would work.

Intelligence – somehow confuse it? Some trick with the hallway?

It was a fair assumption that an aberrant solution should exist for each attribute, but his best guesses were vague. In the end, he decided to go with the trap idea. He was certain it would work, and he liked the idea of a bonus point in DEX more than in STR. That trap room had been cool.

And so as he jogged Alex began to uncoil his two and a half metres of cord from his waist. He was panting and had developed a stitch below his ribs but he had no choice but to run through the pain. With the cord in hand, he switched to a sprint to gain a bit of distance on the relentless zombie pursuing him.

Panting, he stopped and began to tie a loop with the end of the cord. He had to hold his shiv and key in his hand while he did so

Fuck, why did I cut this thing in half!

He speedily tied around a third of the cord into a loop, suddenly grateful for some of his more… adventurous nocturnal experiences. Then, he draped the loop on the ground just as the voice sounded in his head again.

Stage Six Complete. Do you wish to leave the trial?

The zombie stopped in place. He knew from experience that if he moved more than a metre or so in this confirmation period, the trial would resume. Well, it would resume automatically anyway if he waited more than five seconds.

Alex used the miniscule break to recover some of his breath, and to position the loop on the ground. He wasn’t confident in his ability to trap the ghoulish pursuer if things got much faster – this stage might be his last chance. He could feel himself reaching his limits, meaning he’d already been jogging for several kilometres. Sub-optimal though it was, a stage seven exit seemed inevitable. Overconfidence here would mean death, and as much as it upset him, Alex knew his limits.

Commencing Stage Seven.

Here it came. The zombie was properly running at him now, ready to engage in another five minutes of their terrifying cat-and-mouse game. Alex trembled as it closed the distance, using all his willpower to remain in place. If this didn’t work, he’d have to sprint to get away. He began moving slowly backwards, trailing the loop in front of him like a fishing lure and doing his best to keep it spread over the hallway floor.

As soon as the zombie looked like it was about to land in the loop, Alex yanked his end of the cord and sprinted, not looking back.

This is so dumb. This won’t work at all.

It didn’t work, and he had to sprint for a solid thirty seconds to regain a solid lead. Glancing at the monster pursuing him and slowing back to a run, Alex gathered the cord in his hands for a second time. Then, he stopped and laid it out on the ground with haste, turning immediately to run as the zombie lunged forward. His throat had long gone dry and he was heaving in breaths after even that quick sprint.

This time his yank on the cord caught something, and the zombie toppled to the ground, smashing its head against the marble floor.

“Fuck yeah!” Alex panted, “you piece of shit undead!” He wanted to kick the zombie while it was down, but the instructions not to get touched were fresh in his mind.

And then the zombie began to stand up again.

Shitshitshit.

Alex yanked the cord which had constricted around its leg, pulling it off-balance as it lunged along the ground toward him. Then, with no other options, he threw the shiv still in his hand as hard as he could.