“….a little talk, Your Majesty?” My voice was barely more than a squeak. Oh man. Oh maaaan.

This was it. I didn’t know what IT was- I mean, His Majesty was legendary for his benevolence and kindness. Ever since the creation of Foronea, there’ve been stories of how His Majesty would grant boons of power, land, treasures, you name it--so it had to be something good, right?

Should I try a be a little modest? Mom and Dad always say its a bad look to gloat.

“Nonsense! There’s nothing wrong with a little gloating after a hard-fought victory!” His Majesty’s empiric voice boomed forth once again.

Oh, of course he could read my thoughts! Hmm. That……wasn’t that surprising, actually. I’d be more surprised if he couldn’t. Either way, nice to know I didn’t make an ass out of myself right at the finish line.

“Well, I didn’t say that. But yes, a little talk about your performance in the Trial. First…”

The aquatic blue screen hanging in front of me fractured, shattering like a pane of stained glass. The shattered fragments remained, swirling around me like a whirlpool. More and more gathered, swirling faster and faster, whipping the air into a fevered frenzy. Thick ropes of air swept underneath me, gently raising me into the air. Thank His Majesty I wasn’t spinning.

For a split second, barely even a full blink, everything vanished. All I could see was pitch black, an absolute void that stretched out in front of me for eternity.

Then, before I could even think of feeling frightened, there was light again, and the swirling typhoon of blue shards vanished. Unfortunately, the magical whirlwind hadn’t seen fit to put me down gently, and I was unceremoniously dumped straight out of the air.

*Splash* “Wooo-uurbb!”

Definitely hadn’t been expecting a splash. Especially not into something cold. Ice cold. I gasped as the freezing liquid touched me, accidentally sucking down a huge mouthful into my lungs. It burned like fire, my lungs pulling tight, trying to force the liquid out.

The-whatever it was- was shallow (luckily), only six inches deep or so. I frantically pushed myself up and began heaving aggressively. It was bad. Really bad. Whatever this shit was, it wasn’t water. It was too thick, too oily. My hacking and wheezing managed to cough some up, but it wasn’t enough. I could feel most of it still in there, sticking to the inside of my lungs, pooling at the bottom.

I heaved harder, imitating all the experts drinkers out behind Grindel’s bar I’d seen over the years. It didn’t help.

Ah. Okay then.

Genuine panic began to flow through me now, a new wave mounting with every spluttered wheeze and failed breath. Was this it? Was this how I died? Did His Majesty just drop me off here as punishment after all?

Suddenly, I felt it again. The almost crippling pressure of His Majesty’s gaze, like having the eyes of the universe’s deadliest predator staring straight at you. His voice started up almost immediately afterword, sounding like He was settling into a comfortable chair.

“Ahhhhhhhlright. Had some business to take care of.”

There was a short pause.

“*Tsk!* All of you always insist on drinking the quicksilver! Yes it looks refreshing and delicious, I know, but no, it won’t grant you any anything other than a quick and painful death, not magic powers or special buffs! Jeez, honestly! Hold on a second.”

A thick haze of warm golden light permeated up through the floor, surrounding me completely. With a soft *whooosh*, the haze rushed into me. A blissful, potent sensation of relief ran through me, my whole body practically buzzing with renewed vigor. Fresh air filled my lungs, the icy cold quicksilver simply vanishing.

“GUUUUUUUUUH! OH SWEET AIIIIIR!” Hands down, that first gasp of clean, uninhibited air was the single best thing I’d ever tasted. Sorry Mom, that fresh lemon cake is hard to beat, but ‘not fucking dying’ is just, mmmph, somethin’ special.

“Hehe, drama queen.”

I could hear the grin in His Majesty’s voice, and smiled widely. If His Majesty thought it was funny, I was more than happy to oblige.

“Personally I’d prefer being called a drama king.” Laughing, I got to my feet. Oddly, the quicksilver didn’t seem to be as cold anymore, almost pleasantly warm in fact. “Wait wait, no, how about ‘Drama Emperor’.”

His Majesty actually laughed at that! It was a glorious sound. All the joyous force of a fireworks celebration mixed with the uplifting swell of a standing ovation.

“Hahaha! Alright, alright, hold on now. The position of ‘King’ is already filled, and I think you would be hard pressed to get him to hand it over. And there are definitely no emperors in Terralane, thank you! How about ‘drama prince’ then? Heh.” The King chuckled again.

I flourished into a deep, smarmy bow, a massive grin splitting my face. “Oh thank you, Your Majesty, a thousand times thank you! I shall humbly accept this title, and strive to live up to the expectations of the role! Your generosity and benevolence truly knows no bounds my Liege, it truly is a blessing having you as our Ruler, instead of one of those other Three.” Oh man, this was actually a lot of fun.

“Hah!” His Majesty roared out a laugh. “Spot on kid, spot on. You know they didn’t use to sound so pompous all the time.”

His Majesty, where-ever He actually was right now, took a breath, and got the first sound of a word out, but stopped Himself. “Th-, actually never-mind. We don’t have time for that. Unless you’d rather not get Blessed today?”

I immediately sobered, shit-eating grin falling off my face like a badly hung painting. I slapped my arms to my side (Painfully, I’ll add. I was still wearing my gauntlets after all.) and stood crisply at attention. “Not at all, Your Majesty, my Lord, Sir! I’d really, really like to get Blessed as soon as possible.”

“Yep. That’s what I thought. Alright then, down to serious business. Let’s talk about the results of your Trial, shall we? Please, take a seat.”

There was an odd, wet noise behind me, like the sound of near-freezing drops of water splashing into that small, rusty puddle in our sink. It was like that high pitch *plop!*, but about a hundred times louder.

I turned, finding a chair. A really nice chair. It was made entirely out of quicksilver, and kept its liquid form on the outside, bands of multicolor swimming through out. The outer liquid shell was rounded with a sort of soft point on top. Kind of like an egg, I suppose. There was a carved out section in the middle with a crimson colored seat cushion. Nice.

I sat. The seat was very plush, and conformed perfectly to all the contours of my back. I sank back in bliss. “Oooooookay, Your Majesty. What did you want to talk about?”

“Here’s the situation. You highly exceeded all of my predictions for you in the Trial.”

It took every god darn thing I had in me to not fly out of the chair, barely keeping my ass on the edge of the seat. I tried really hard not to sound like a smug little shit. “Mmmhmm! That’s about what I expected! I pretty much cuh-rushed it.” Total failure on that front.

“Slow down there, quick-draw. I hate to burst your bubble, but that doesn’t mean quite as much as you think it does.”

His Majesty’s word hit me like a literal punch in the gut, knocking the wind right out of me. I slumped back into the chair. It wasn’t so comfortable anymore.

“Oh.”

His Majesty clucked His tongue. “Tsk, come on kid. Moping isn’t a good look on anyone. Especially in front of Me, if you get my drift? You didn’t even let me finish explaining.”

My back straightened, cheeks flushing red with embarrassment. It was just like get chewed out by my old man. If my old man was capable of wiping me from the literal history books. Okay, so maybe not just like it.

“You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry Your Majesty.”

“It’s alright. I understand your excitement, but keep it in check and listen. Now, you seem to have a pretty decent idea of how the Trial works, right?”

I nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty. The Trial of Blessing draws randomly from an available pool of rooms, puzzles, traps, and enemies based on certain criteria that the Trial-goer meets, though no one knows what those are. But, after countless years of meticulous record collecting by various member’s of the Adventurer’s Guild Archival Branch, the general consensus is that the Guild knows of all the possible combinations of rooms and obstacles. Hardly any of the actual hard rules though.”

“Oh. Yeah, that uh, that pretty much sums it up. Of course then you also know about the grading scale for the Trial of Blessings. D-S based on a variety of things, mostly on how good a person is about ‘not dying’.”

Again, I nodded my head, a bit more emphatically this time. “Absolutely! There’s factors based on fighting ability, puzzle solving, flexible thinking, and general style. Anyone who survives at the very least will get a D, though…” I grimaced in disgust, “D tier Blessings straight up suck. I almost think I’d rather just die. Passing with competence gets you a C, which are decent, but nothing to write home about. So on and so on, all the way up to S rank!” My voice trembled with excitement. An S rank Blessing was legendary.

I meant that literally too. Every single S ranker to ever live had gone down in history as a legend. Most as heroes that defined their era. Some, well, not so much. Either way, the birth of an S Ranker was a momentous event, and whenever a new one was found, the entirety of Foronea would focus on them like a hawk.

Call me selfish (You’re not wrong!), but I wanted it so bad I could taste it. That raw power. The sheer force of presence simply having an S rank gave you. It didn’t matter if you were poor. It didn’t matter if you lived in the worst part of the city. It didn’t matter if your family was nothing but a long line of fucking dirt farmers! If His Majesty gave me an S rank, none of that—NONE—of that would matter. I’d be able to finally take care of my family they way they should be.

I’d be able to fix things.

His Majesty’s roaring laugh echoed through the air once more.

“Ah Hah Hah Hah! Oh kid, bless you. Like an open book.”

I could just see Him shaking His head while He said it. My neck prickled, hairs standing on end like the hackles of a threatened dog. I bit my tongue to keep from saying anything I’d really regret.

“Woah there, down boy. I didn’t mean anything bad by it. Just the opposite in fact. Sit tight for a second and listen.”

I settled back deep, deep into the egg chair, giving His Majesty my complete and undivided attention.

“Let’s get back to the main topic at hand first. All of your questions will be answered by the end, promise. So here’s the deal. You, Emmanuel Burroughs, did excellently on your Trial, performing well above the standard expectations I have for,” His Majesty paused for a second, chewing over His words, “unaltered mortals.”

Well, that was certainly a nicer way to put it than I was used to. Mundane. Ugh, even just thinking the word left a bad taste on my metaphorical brain tongue.

“Indeed. Accurate it may be, I have always found it in poor taste. Yes, the Mundane. The poor, unwashed masses. Those with nothing special to them at all, that bottom sixty five percent fated to spend their life as part of the silent majority, slaving away under their betters in order to keep the System running.”

There was a short, somber pause on His Majesty’s end, punctuated by the sharp *clack, clack, clack* of an irritated tapping nail.

“I hate to say it—I love all of my citizens as my own children, including the Mundanes- but by My Own Mane most of them are absolutely worthless. I mean really; they just blow ass. No basic competency at all. Combat abilities: trash! Puzzle solving: Garbage! Sense of adventure, willingness to risk themselves, the real willpower to fight and win against any odds. Non-existent. Paper cut-outs of real living things, good for keeping society running, but not much else.”

I blinked in surprise. He’d gone from roaring laughter to intense, passionate criticizing in the span of like thirty seconda, and there was some real bitterness there. I almost threw my own opinion out there, compelled to defend myself and my Mundane brethren, but I quickly reconsidered. His Majesty had been incredibly candid with me already, but I didn’t want to stretch His courtesy too thin. No matter how much of a ‘dad’ vibe He’d been giving off, He was still God, and if He was going to work Himself into a bad attitude I did not want A.N.Y of that.

So I simply nodded my head to the beat of the conversation.

“And you know, I get it. They can’t help themselves. When your whole life revolves around sifting dirt, cleaning garbage, or whatever other menial bullshit a Mundane gets stuck doing, how are you supposed to find the time to train? To learn? When you’re constantly worn down by the grindstone of sub-servitude, how are you supposed to stoke the fire of courage and fight? All valid. So I don’t blame them for sucking. But that doesn’t change the facts. Mediocrity and incompetence is still mediocrity and incompetence even if you have an excuse, and you can’t have what you don’t earn. That’s one of the primordial laws of the Verse. Not even I can change that.”

Ooof, man, that’s pretty harsh.

“And so, when I was but a prideful young cub who called Himself king, I did what I believed my people would want. I created the Trial of Blessing, and let all citizens, no matter their social rank or inherent ability, put themselves to the same test and receive the power to change their fates. After all, that’s what they wanted; citizens and System both. But good intentions pave the road to Hell. For the Adjusted, those born with inherent magical abilities, the Trial functioned exactly as intended. It cut the cream from the crop, the curds of success separated from the whey of failure. Of course, some died, but that’s only to be expected. Every loss of life is painful, yes, but small sacrifices for the good of the whole are simply unavoidable.”

His Majesty’s voice darkened, deep melancholy hanging over it like an impending storm. “For the Mundane, it was not a small sacrifice. Forget about getting a good grade. It was a miracle whenever one of them even passed. They gave their lives in droves. Year after year after year. You could never imagine how many people I’ve seen throw their lives away for something that they never had a whisper of a chance for.” The King’s voice was haunted, as if He’d hung every one of their deaths on His shoulders.

Wow. What did you even say to that? “I-I’m very sorry for your loss, Your Majesty. It sounds like it was very hard on you.”

“Indeed. I tried making it harder for the Mundane to take the Trial, in the form of complicated registration processes and complex paperwork. But the Siren’s call is captivating indeed, and the only return I saw on those efforts was an increased literacy rate as people taught themselves to read so that they could go die. It took longer than it should have, but eventually I did what I should have done in the first place. I created a new, significantly easier Trial for the Mundanes only.”

I opened my mouth--

“Don’t even. ‘Your Majesty, if it was that simple, why didn’t you do that in the first place.’ First; it wasn’t that simple. Second; Watch your tongue. Remember who you’re talking to.”

I snapped my mouth shut so fast I almost bit off my tongue. I mimicked zipping my mouth shut and throwing the zipper away.

“Good. You wouldn’t understand why anyway. Plus, I’ve been monologuing long enough. In the end, all that matters is that by making the Trial easier, it limits the Blessing you can earn. The best bronze is worth less than the worst gold, after all.”

“I-no, what does that mean for me, exactly? So even though I aced the Trial that’s not good enough!?” I grimaced as soon as I said it. “Sorry, You Majesty. I need to rein in my tongue. Please forgive me.” I bowed my head, wincing slightly.

*Clack*

*Clack*

*CLACK*

There was a loud crack, like a tree bough snapping in half, then a huge huff of wind.

“Alright, alright. It’s fine. It’s fine. I’d have had the same reaction at your age. Unfortunately yes, that is exactly what that means. For the Mundane Trial of Bless, the highest grade you can earn is a B. Most of you don’t do well enough for that to matter. A’s among the Mundane are rare, and,” there was a pronounced pause, “I don’t recall ever granting a Mundane an S rank.”

Was that a challenge? It sounded like a challenge. “Bring it on Your Majesty! I’m not just some ‘Mundane’! I’m Emmanuel Burroughs, and I’ll beat the hell out of whatever you throw at me!”

“That is exactly what I wanted to hear.”

*Boom!*

A thunderous sound roared high above me. The air began to whip up, buffeting currents lashing around wildly. I braced myself, arms protecting my face. Just in time too. A heavy wave of force crashed down from the sky, causing the quicksilver landscape to quake violently. The silver liquid sloshed into tall waves that crashed over me, leaving me drenched in the mysterious substance.

I expected the burning cold pain again, but instead, a wave of gentle warmth spread over me. And instead of coating me like oil, it simply ran off and back down into the layer that stretched across this whole plane. The quaking stopped soon after, the whole world gently settling back to stillness.

*Bloop!*

Ten feet in front of me, there was was a splash. A mound of quicksilver, about the size of my head, began to rise from the sheer silver surface. The surface tension held for a second before the mound slipped away from the main body’s hold, becoming a free floating, perfectly spherical orb of liquid metal.

The orb began to glow with a dim heat, like the burn of a dying ember. Like shot-gunning a handful of pebbles into a pond, dozens of ripples sprung into being as an equal number of smaller orbs rose from the liquid. These ones were much smaller, about the size of marbles, and swarmed around the larger ball like bees with their hive. The dim red glow of the main orb brightened, shimmers of heat now visibly pulsing off of it. With each second, the glow grew brighter and brighter, the swarm of marbles swirling around it viciously. As it did, the heat it put out grew too, until it felt like I was looking a miniature Novas. Even from ten feet away, sweat began to drip off my face.

Abruptly and without warning, the swarm stopped dead and shot towards the main orb. Before I could do anything to prepare, they collided. There was a deafening crash of thunder alongside an explosion of radiant light, and my entire world turned white.