Thera silently watched Ben from the side as he modified some of his sticky pads to give himself more space bombs as she tried to handle all of the emotions filling her. He’d almost died because she wanted to do the trial just to get a little more power, and while he seemed to be handling what he’d gone through well she doubted how much of that was really the case. He’d said as much himself.

Another nightmare to his collection…

Guilt was eating at her. Since she’d met him she’d seen him struggle with things, be it his perceived lack of value and the difference between how he and the other humans had been treated when he’d arrived, or the fact that as far as his home was concerned he was dead, his family being out of his reach for the rest of his life. Even the high likelihood that he’d die again in the next couple years had to be taking some sort of toll, but in the time she’d spent with him, she’d seen him getting better with it. Less distant looks as he remembered the past and more thinking about the future, but as he’d finally gotten comfortable with his place in the world he’d only been forced into more situations that would leave their mental scars.

And this one is my fault.

She wanted to talk him into leaving immediately. She’d be more than happy to do it too if it meant not needing to see him in a state like that again, but already knew he would fight her on it. If there was one thing he liked less than putting his life on the line, it was losing out on any benefit that taking such a risk would bring. If they left now then going through the first two stages would have been for nothing when they only needed to do one more to get a reward.

As long as we aren’t separated I’ll be able to keep him safe for the next one and then I’ll talk him into going. As much as I like the others, if they want to keep pushing on they can do it themselves.

Even if she wanted to be stronger, she wouldn’t do it at the cost of him, and the blessing would be plenty, so with her resolve firm in her heart she waited as everyone got emotionally ready before she took his hand and held it tight, walking into the next floor of the tower.

The first thing she noticed was sand whipping into her face as a desert stretched on as far as the eye could see while the wind blew across the dunes, stinging her skin as she turned to look to Ben, wanting to be sure they hadn’t been separated as with the last trial, only to find him looking exceedingly smug, the barrier around him blocking out that fine dust as the rest of them dealt with it.

Shaking her head she raised her staff, casting a spell around them and maintaining it as each tiny grain moved out of their way, the flow of it being like it was a wave breaking against a rock. She hadn’t done anything like it before, but it wasn’t an overly complicated application of her magic, taking only a little mana and will to maintain, at least for her.

Ben just looked at his barrier sadly, seeing it wasn’t going to get its time to shine, while she and the others wiped sand and dust from their eyes as they looked around.

“So this is a little non-specific,” Jake complained, and she couldn’t help but agree. The first section and the last had been clear enough on what they were supposed to be doing, but this one felt so vague in comparison, or at least not immediately intuitive until Ben called out, catching their attention and pointing up to the sky, bringing all of their eyes to the countdown in place of a sun, beaming light around them.

“So I’m guessing we have either twelve hours to get out or we have to survive here for that long,” He said before he looked to the sky and called out to any gods watching. “And I want to make a complaint about unintuitive level design! Seriously, you guys are gods, at least make it clear!”

No answer came and he just shook his head, leaving Amy to speak up as she turned to Jake. “Take a bird’s eye view and let us know if there’s anything that would give it away.”

“Mmh, sure,” He said, a bit of hesitation in his voice as he started to float. “Fingers crossed there’s nothing up there that might hurt too much.”

They watched as he rose higher and higher, Thera trying to be ready in case there was anything up there worth worrying about, but soon enough he came back down and shook his head.

“Just sand as far as I could see. If there is anything other than that it's either too small, too far, or too buried.”

She wasn’t sure what to make of that, but the grimace on Ben’s face was clear. “If that isn’t a time limit to escape then it’s one to survive, which means things might get pretty bad.”

While the weather wasn’t desirable, it was manageable, at least for the time being. Even if the floor was built to be a desert, the heat wasn’t actually too bad and the light wasn’t blinding. As things stood the only thing they had to deal with was the sand, and she was managing that for all of them easily enough, and with the two options being walk or wait, they elected to wait, standing on guard for whatever would happen.

Thera, finding standing on the loose sand to be annoying, as well as unstable in the event anything did end up happening, moved to change it, using her magic to meld and compress all that was under their feet into a solid platform to wait upon, only for her to feel the smallest of changes off in the distance as her earth sense did its job.

As a passive skill, it was easy enough to ignore. It gave her an innate feeling of where there was earth around her, with the answer to that usually being down, but it had shown its uses in the past. It let her pick up on stone apes swinging from tree branches previously thanks to the creature’s natural mineral plating, and while it was a bit hard to tell as things currently stood, she believed it was letting her sense something moving through the ground toward them as she went on the alert and held her staff at the ready as a creature exploded from the ground.

Twice as big as any of them with a long, sleek body, it stretched out its metallic claws as it shot through the air, only to be taken out that same instant as her magic pulled the sand with all of her force, shooting through its head and leaving a body collapsed on the ground before anyone else could react.

“So I guess that means a combat one,” Jake muttered as Ben pulled everyone’s eyes back to the sky.

“And looks like another clue of what we’re dealing with has decided to reveal itself.”

Beside the countdown was a new number, one hundred, giving no more context but more to speculate on as they stood on guard.

“Think we’ll need to be fighting a hundred of those?” Amy wondered as she looked around for anything else that might come their way.

“If we’re lucky,” Ben grumbled, alternatives already swarming through his head and none of which he liked.

It only took a few minutes as they all pondered just what the floor was going to hold when Thera felt something again. Two somethings in fact, both burrowing through the sand and approaching from the other side as the first while she prepared to take them out, only stopping as Jake yelled out.

“Wait, these ones are ours!”

He wanted to get better so he needed the practice, same with Amy, so they both watched where Thera pointed as two more of the creatures jumped out as they tried to attack. Jake held out his staff and Amy altered her weapon to take the form of a club.

As both creatures' claws gleamed in the light as they lunged, she didn’t know what happened. It looked like Jake hadn’t even used a spell while Amy’s weapon passed through the beast she was trying to take on harmlessly, leaving them both to jump out of the way at the last moment, narrowly avoiding their claws and leaving Thera to act as sand came in from both sides to stab at the creatures, leaving two more bodies with them as they tried to understand what went wrong.

“Shit,” Was the first thing any of them said as Ben looked to them, then back at the sky. “Double shit. Looks like I’m probably going to be useless this round. Sorry guys.”

“And mind sharing with the class why?” Amy asked as she looked at her weapon, wondering just why it had failed her.

“Based on how things just didn’t work out at all there, I’m guessing they have magic nullification which is just super unfair and means that my enchantments won’t work at all. Also, depending on how big the next group might be I’d say this isn’t looking super good either.”

He pointed up to the sky, alerting them all to the fact that the one hundred had gone down to a ninety-nine, and given that they’d just killed two, it meant it wasn’t going to be as simple as just killing that many in total.

“Ah crap,” Jake muttered in understanding. “You aren’t thinking-”

“We’ll know in about seven minutes,” Ben shrugged while Thera looked at the two of them.

“What are you guys thinking?”

“That we’ll need to face a hundred waves of enemies total, and given how the last section went, as well as how things just went from one enemy to two, things are going to get pretty intense at the end of this.”