Chapter 2: Chapter 2

She wanted to hesitate, to delay, to not step inside, but she knew that she had to and thus she did. Old dust covered the stone floor on which her heels clicked, while half-rotten torches magically sprang to life, their eerie bright blue glow the only thing illuminating the expanse of shadow. Then, with a loud bang, the double doors slammed shut behind her! Rika turned around at a moment's notice, realising she was now trapped inside!

(Oh, th-that scared me! Hah, hah... Calm down, Rika, you know this too is simply part of the challenge!)

As far as she had been informed prior, there would be an altar ahead with a blue crystal which was to offer her her trial. She could refuse, in which case she would simply be ejected from the dungeon, but such an act of cowardice would also forfeit her right to the throne, so it was hardly an option to pick.

(Onward, then...)

Guided by the torches along a corridor, she stepped forward until she spotted the glow of the crystal. The huge thing, as tall as several men and many times as wide as herself, had a roughly-hewn appearance. Its top and bottom came to sharp points as it slowly rotated in mid-air in defiance of gravity. Below it was a pedestal with a hole in the middle, but the more important part was the stone tablet facing the exit and Rika herself.

Coming even closer, she felt the immense power of the crystal washing over her; so strong was it that she had to strain herself from being pushed backwards again. The construct eventually accepted her determination and let her proceed to the tablet. Runes appeared on the flat surface, etched in sparkling silver contrasting the dark stone itself. Rika began to interpret the message written in an old dialect.

"Si... Scion of the honar... honoured house, art thou ready for thein... thine challenge? Dost thou accept ti... the hardship and claim thine birthright?"

Unfortunately, the writing did not describe what the challenge would actually consist of, but Rika pressed down on the part that said "I consent" with barely a moment of hesitation this time. Powerful, blinding light radiated from the crystal and the young woman had to shield her eyes for a moment before it faded just as quickly.

 

"Bah, why did that have to be so bright!? My poor eyes!"

She looked around and found herself in another chamber, the crystal and tablet gone from her vision.

"Wh-Where am I? Was that teleportation magic?"

As she tried to find her bearing, a single torch came to life, this one set lower than the others and hardly affixed to the wall. She took it in her hand and looked around the sparsely decorated room.

"Hmm, let's see: a single bed covered in some form of old cloth. A table and chair of stone, and a hole in the corner?"

What really tipped her off to the nature of this room though were the metal rods covering a wide open side of it.

"Is this a prison cell!?"

The challenge now seemed clear: her task was to escape. To show her craftiness and intellect. Of course, for she was a mage, she could be expected to have the necessary wits. Unfortunately, since she was a mage, she was also trained to think like a mage, and thus...

"Lighting Bolt!"

Her wand summoned crackling lighting around it until she pointed it forward at the bars, which promptly reflected the magic back at herself! The stench of something foul filled the air as Rika evaded her own magic with just a hair's breadth. Literally. At least only some of her ends were sizzled while the wall behind her was scorched black from the impact, some of the stone work having come loose as well.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch..."

She slowly stood up and dusted herself off, taking in the faint smell of lightning magic in. The black spot on the wall did not improve her mood any.

(Well, that did not work... but in retrospect it could not have been that easy to begin with.)

She looked around, her hair swishing this way and that as she examined the drab room. She decided that the best course of action for the time being would be to put the torch back into its holder and lay her staff aside.

(There has to be a key or something of that nature, right?)

Unfortunately, the table and chair seemed to contain no hidden compartments. Neither did searching under the bed yield anything useful. The old, dusty smell assaulted her nose once more as she rummaged through the old bed sheets, yet still nothing of value was found. Checking the brick work around the room with light taps revealed nothing, either. Which only left one possible place...

"Oh Gods above, please don't let it be in the hole...", she quietly muttered as she resigned herself to the task ahead.

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To protect her arm and clothes, she wrapped some of the bedding around it, then slowly pushed it downward. Thankfully the hole seemed dry, although an old smell even worse than that of the bed made her want to stop. But, eventually, she found something hard and thin, so she eagerly grabbed the object and pulled it out of the pitch blackness below.

"Oh finally, here's the key! *Sniff sniff* Eww! ...Let's just hope I don't have to do anything like THAT again..."

With the metal bars now so inviting, she fumbled around with the key in search of a lock. The key fit and the door swung open, granting her freedom once again.

(I should leave... and please, no more tests like that one.)

 

Staff and torch in hands, she made her quick exit from the cell. After a very long corridor of stone, torches, and absolutely nothing else but a lot of ancient dust, Rika was starting to wonder if she was really heading into the correct direction.

"Nobody told me it would be this... uneventful. Am I being tested on my ability to be patient, perhaps? That could not be true, right?"

Yet on she walked, heels on stone the only thing audible until...

"Hm? What might this be?"

She almost bumped into something, and the something turned out to be a pedestal not unlike the one from before upon which the giant crystal rested... although this one was much smaller.

"This appears to be a box for jewellery. Why would it be here of all places?", she wondered quietly while staring at the curious box made from a red-coloured metal and adorned with silvery bands shaped into vine-like motifs.

After some contemplating on what to do with the thing, she decided to first check if it might be trapped. She could not find anything from sensing magic; rather, the object seemed to be entirely magically dead, suggesting it to either be perfectly sealed or simply entirely mundane. Considering that the second option was the more likely one, she carefully raised it up and looked under it just in case it was connected to a wire. However, nothing of the sort seemed to be the case.

"Maybe this is what I need! It rests on a pedestal after all, so it's most likely part of the trial! Well then, please show me what you hold!"

Excitement having gotten the better of her, she opened the little thing. Yet inside was...

"Nothing? Why is this thing empty!? Gaaaah, and here I was- Wait, no. Could it be?"

Rika quickly noticed that the box was not, in fact, empty, but its contents were invisible to mundane senses.

"Very well, I shall retract that. Cancel Invisibility!"

She gleefully directed her magic into the casket. A tiny light shone out and a choker revealed itself, the purple band with a leathery texture holding a black gem laid into a silvery base.

"That gem radiates a lot of magic, this has to be a clue! ...So what if I put it on? That should give me some insight into its nature. Very well then, choker, reveal your secrets to me!" 

Gingerly she took it out and, forgetting the crucial step of appraising the choker itself, put it on at once.

"How foolish."

A deep, deep voice disturbed the quiet of the area.

"Wh-Who's there!?"

Rika turned around repeatedly, looking this way and that... and realised just slightly too late that she must have committed a terrible mistake!

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