“Alright Greed all you have to do is think of something and we’ll see if it works,” Ben told his companion, a metal box strapped to his head in preparation for a little experiment he’d made to keep himself sane.

“Like this?” He asked in a robotic voice, only to change his tone immediately. “Holy crap, this thing actually works? You’re crazy legs, how did you come up with this?”

“Just saw a need and decided to fill it, not that it’s any good in here.”

What Ben had made shared properties with some of his mind control devices, as well as music players he’d made in the past. A small tool that read the user's mind, speaking the thoughts it contained aloud, even if it did come off as rather metallic as a result. It hadn’t been easy to make by any stretch, but after everything else he’d been doing he needed to stretch his creativity, at least a little bit.

With that experiment done though they got back to what they were normally doing during their imprisonment. Ben training his skills and trying to learn all he could to keep them alive, and Greed either sleeping through what he could, buffing Ben, or practicing his music, at least until he needed a snack.

Ben stopped what he was doing to eat what the trial provided him as well before cutting his hand for the crab as they both had their fill, neither talking during the time. It was a complicated matter for the both of them, but it had to be done to keep them alive.

“Legs, tell me something interesting,” Greed asked after feasting on Ben's blood.

“What? Where did that come from?”

“It came from my boredom! You might be able to keep yourself entertained staring at a wall and training your skills, but I need a bit more stimulation! Come on, help a guy out!”

Ben thought in silence for a minute before he spoke up. “Well, there’s only one skill it’s impossible to enchant with.”

“...I don’t know why I expected anything else at this point, but fine I’ll bite. What skill?”

“Magic nullification. An extremely good enchanter might be able to create an item to hold its effects for a few hours, but in the end it always decays away and destroys itself, or at least I’ve read. I’d say that’s pretty interesting.”

“I mean, kind of, but come on, you’ve got to have something better than that for me.”

“I don’t know man, I’ll think on it and get back to you later. If you’re looking to be distracted, why not tell me what you’re gonna do when we get out of here.”

“If we get out.”

“When we get out,” Ben told him firmly. “Power of positive thinking; we're not being defeatists when we need to put our all into this.”

“Fine, in that case, I’m making this ordeal the center of my performance from now on. I’m going to compose a song so incredible that bards across the land will have to sing it as well. Just you wait legs, you’re gonna be a star.”

“Uh, can I decline?”

“Nope. You told me to be optimistic, I can’t be much more than thinking about how rich surviving is going to make me, that’s for sure. How about you? What are your dreams once we see the sun?”

“God, first things first I want a real meal. Even if it’s not killing me, man wasn’t meant to live on bread alone, especially not this crap. Other than that, being reunited with my wonderful forge will be incredible. Honestly, I can’t wait. I’m going to use so many things I can’t in here and make so much junk. Just you watch, I’ve made two ultra-rare items now, I’m going to do my best to flood the market. Oh, and I have a couple more skills to try and awaken too. Well, I really only need to manage it with one, but it’s going to be hard to do it stuck in here. I’ve got to push myself a bit more. Oh, and some payment to collect too. Nobody gets out of it just because they think I’m dead.”

“Wait, go back a bit. You’re close to awakening two more skills?”

“Well, I’ve got two ninth-level ones so I’d say so. Honestly, awakening focus isn’t really important, I don’t even know what it could do for me if it does, but getting connect awakened is essential. If I can do that then I should be able to take my crafting to a whole other level. God, I can only imagine.”

He was starting to drool as he thought about what he’d be able to make if he could enchant with awakened skills. Just being able to do it with ninth-level ones was proving incredible already, but awakened ones would take him to a whole new level. He would even be able to go around adding the magic necessary to make the gates and collect the piles of money that came with such a thing. He knew he’d have to push his limits to make it happen, but the results would be incredible.

“Alright, I already know by this point that you’re ridiculous, what I’m more curious about is if you’re still hanging onto that resolve you had before you got tossed in here, if you catch my meaning.”

“...After all this, I’m sure talking to Thera will be easy.”

“Ha, well you’ll have to let me know how it goes. When you come to claim your show that is, the moment we get out I’m heading for the gate. I don’t think I’m ever coming to Allfaith again after all this.”

“Ha, don’t blame you.”

“Alright, I’ll take that,” he said to himself as he went to pick up the piece of bread he’d just forced the trial to give him as he waited for his mana to recover. They didn’t really need to take a week after how easy the last section had been, but they’d both agreed to give themselves at least that much time between each section. They needed to rest and recover each time and Ben was determined to work on his skills. He wanted to gain whatever bit of edge he could as they rested, even if it didn’t end in a new level for him.

It was only once he was back to his maximum mana that he suited up, his armour altered to handle the dark affinity of the next trial by including the dark resistance enhancement from his ring as well as the purification of light magic and a few other effects to give them whatever edge they could.

Given that dark magic was largely mind effects and debuffs, he wasn’t looking forward to the trial, no matter how much his resistances might help, but he knew there was no getting around it. This section would be the middle of the trial, once they finished it there was less than half to go. All they had to do was their best.

With both of them as ready as they’d ever be they stepped through the door, leaving their safety and finding themselves in complete darkness as they did.

Unlike the brief darkness that came any time they left their waiting room to enter whatever section was about to be thrown at them, this one didn’t end. They’d found themselves in an endless abyss, a fact that made the sole light source shine out all the brighter to him.

Oh come on and let this be another easy one. He thought with crossed fingers as he activated a light enchantment on the outside of his armour, eager to get whatever bit of mercy he could as he started walking to it, talking to Greed as he went.

“What do you think? Feeling anything yet?”

“Don’t think so, Just wish there was something to see. Not much point in having a light if the world’s empty, huh?”

Interesting. Greed wasn’t wrong. Ben had been expecting the dark at least, but he’d also thought the trial might try similar things as the previous section had, hiding traps and pitfalls while making them hallucinate other exits. The fact that there was none of that, at least yet, made him worry about whatever was to come.

Still, he did his best not to focus on what wasn’t there, instead moving with cautious speed to what he hoped was the exit. There were only so many things dark magic could do and he’d done his best to prepare against them, all it came down to was if his luck would hold up.

For the first while, it seemed like nothing was happening. They made their way, drawing ever closer to the source of light and freedom, but all at once Ben was overcome by weakness and felt a very real stabbing in his chest as he went, one he wasn’t able to shake. Both were far too instantaneous to be the gradual change the trial seemed to provide as it raised the difficulty, and though he’d expected both debuffs and mind effects to come into play eventually, he didn’t think he was being affected.

The key part being that he wasn’t. The stabbing he felt had given way to a feeling of moisture dripping down his chest where Greed was sitting in the armour with him, and with the pain came the feeling of things snapping into place as he connected to the crab to confirm what he’d expected.

KILLHIMKILLHIMKILLHIMHOWDARETHIS ASSHOLEGETMEINTOTHISKILLHIMKILLHIMKILLHIM-

He broke the connection and wanted to scream. Of course the only person he had to rely on in the trial had come under a mind effect that drove him into a murderous rage. The buffs on him had been cancelled, leaving him all the weaker as he tried to rush to the distant light, with the crabs' claws cutting into his flesh as they went, leaving him to struggle with what to do.

Greed had been shoved into there to keep the crab safe with him, but if Ben did nothing he’d only end up more and more hurt in the hours that were to come as his only companion dug into his flesh.

Feeling no other option he took off the helmet, followed by the chest piece Greed sat in, fully intending to put them back on but feeling the weight of the item skyrocket the moment it had come off. The purification effect on it had been doing its job, staving off any debuffs the trial had thrown at them, but without it, as well as not having Greed to buff him, it felt like he’d gained a few hundred pounds, with the crab doing no better.

His companion was still in his fit of madness but snapping much weaker now, not able to work up the strength to do any real harm, but for all the good that did him they had been put into a terrible spot. He had been sure that even with Greed’s buffs and his armour that they were hours away. Now that he had none of that he couldn’t begin to guess how long it would take.

He stared off into the distant light, seeing his target and sighing as he picked up a very heavy Greed as the crab tried to struggle. If his journey had just gotten longer then there was no point lounging so he began his walk again.

Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty. Fuck.

As time wore on whatever debuffs had been placed on them had only grown stronger, until Ben had reached the point that he was dragging himself across the ground to get to where they needed to go, Greed placed upon his back with his companion no longer having the strength to struggle as all of his power was sapped. A small part of him wondered if the crab had died, but he was placed on the back of his jacket so he couldn’t connect to him through it, the effort it would take to move his hand back to check being too great when he needed to focus on getting to the exit.

He didn’t think he’d ever felt so powerless before, as if he didn’t even have the attributes necessary to handle the weight of his own body, and all the worse was how long he’d been in there. A single mind was being used to count the seconds, something he’d started after he’d taken off the armour to keep track of things, but he was regretting it. He’d just passed twenty-four hours in that section since he’d been keeping track, and given the fact that the rest areas had time limits he was willing to bet the trial sections did as well. He didn’t want to be stuck there to find out he was right.

In one bit of luck for him, he’d never ended up succumbing to a mental effect, though he wasn’t sure why. From the impression he got of the god who’d made the trial, having him and Greed kill each other in the middle of it was right up that bastard's alley, but that impulse had only struck one of them in the end as the exit came into sight.

No longer a distant light, he could now make it out as a door to go through and it renewed his vigour as he forced himself onward, dragging his body across the ground with breeding fingers as he did everything he could to keep from stopping, all the while feeling the debuffs continue to grow.

I can’t stop. I stop I die. Any bit of rest I take is just more time for the trial to raise the difficulty, the fact that I can still move at all is basically a miracle. As long as Greed’s alive, whatever damage I do to myself getting out can be fixed. Even if he’s not alive I’ll figure something out. I just need to keep going.

He kept pushing and motivating himself, doing everything he could to tell himself to keep moving. He felt his legs bleeding from dragging them against the ground for so long, the skin all but worn away, but he wouldn’t stop as the exit grew larger and larger within his view, even as he grew more and more lightheaded as he went.

Can’t believe I’m suffering from blood loss in a place where there wasn’t even any direct harm. He thought with mirth. Well, I guess getting Greed to attack me counts as harm, but at least that stopped bleeding after a while on its own… though it might have started again. Fuck.

All of his minds were cursing the god of the trial, as well as the gods of the world for letting it be placed there so easily. Every part of him was screaming that it needed to be destroyed but knew it wouldn’t happen while he was still inside of it, and as he finally made it to the exit, all but rolling through it he decided that figuring out how to do that was just as important as anything else he was filling his time with and would shoot to the top of his priority list the second he was free.