Chapter 17: Trial of Reason

Chapter 17: Trial of Reason

Inside the room, there was what looked to be a cube placed on a pedestal. A pillar of light illuminated the cube but not much else. The cube was made up of segmented squares on each side. It was similar to a puzzle cube like the ones Jack remembered trying to solve when he was younger. He was never able to solve them before and hoped this one didn’t require the same expectations. Unlike the puzzle cubes from his youth, these didn’t have nine squares on each of the six sides of varying colors. This one still had nine squares on each side, but instead they each contained gold images on a silver background.

*Quest Received (Mandatory): Akashic Keeper Trial – Trial of Reason*

-Complete the Trial of Reason

Reward: Akashic Keeper Skill

Failure: Death

*Trial of Reason*

-Find the Key back to the Trial Sanctum and escape

“At least that is confirmation,” Jack said, waving away the System Window. Examining the cube closer, he tried to make sense of the images on the squares. They almost looked reminiscent of the Rune Script that he had seen everywhere in this place, but none of the markings looked like anything he recognized. They did look like pieces of scripts that he recognized. Like they were part of a picture.

Jack picked up the cube and the pillar of light surrounding it expanded until it filled the entire room. It was a small room and embedded into the wall surrounding Jack and the cube were six pictures. Each one looked to be showing a different side of the cube. But he wasn’t sure what they were asking of him.

“Too much to ask for instructions or an explanation I suppose,” Jack muttered. Carefully, Jack moved one of the squares on the cube. As soon as the squares settled into their new position a shift went through the pictures on the wall until they matched what was on the actual cube.

Jack started fiddling with the cube. Jack wasn’t sure what the Trial wanted him to do with it, but he started by trying to create an image with the runes that he recognized. It was the Runic symbol for bird. It was a simple rune and not one what Jack thought would have any purpose in the trial, but it was the first one that he recognized to make.

As he moved the last piece into place, Jack watched as one of the pictures on the wall first shifted to match and then transformed into an image of a bird. Jack watched the picture of the bird for a little while. It was so life-like it looked like it might fly off the wall at any second. Jack was busy admiring the detail of the picture when he felt a sharp pain in his hand.

“Ouch!” Jack exclaimed. He looked down at this hand and saw fresh blood there. “What the?” It happened again! A new cut appeared on his hands drawing more blood. It felt like something was biting or pecking at his hands, but Jack couldn’t see anything there but the cube.

Immediately, Jack let go of the cube, letting it crash onto the ground with a loud thud. No new wounds appeared as he waited for something to happen. He cast Mend to heal his hands before approaching the cube again. Cautiously, Jack knelt and placed a single finger on the cube and immediately there was another sharp pain and another cut appeared. This close to the cube, Jack could almost hear something fluttering around inside the cube.

Bracing for the pain, Jack picked up the cube again with the purpose of changing the symbols. As though knowing Jack’s plan, or just not liking being handled, the bites or pecks picked up again. By the time he managed to change the symbol, Jack’s hands were covered in blood from the many small cuts. The sharp pain stopped as the pictures started to change to match. Jack let out a sigh in relief as the symbols settled into place, but as they did, a different side started to transform.

Jack watched as a symbol Jack didn’t recognize took the shape of a flame. Instantly, the cube felt like it was on fire. Within moments Jack hands were burning and with it came the smell of burning flesh. Jack let go of the cube, dropping it to the ground again. Jack had to cast mend a couple of times to restore his hands.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Jack was looking at the cube now with a new sense of fear. Would it create anything that the symbols created? With Jack only being twenty percent proficient in the language, that left a lot of room to accidentally create a rune he didn’t know.

“Let’s just relax,” Jack muttered to himself. “I know the runic symbol for Death. So long as I don’t create that one on the cube everything will... be fine… probably.“

“Find the Key?” Jack muttered. Maybe he needed to create the symbol for Key with the cube. That seemed straight forward if that was the case, but there was one issue. Jack didn’t know what the symbol for Key was. None of the runes that were forced into Jack’s skull had any information on the word Key. Not even anything on something similar to the word Key.

“Seriously?” Jack complained. “How are you going to have a trial based on a script I just learned and not even include it on the vocabulary list?”

“It’s fine,” Jack grumbled after a moment of ranting to the empty air. He felt better afterwards. Sometimes you just needed to verbalize your frustration. There was only one option left for Jack, guessing. The trial wasn’t going to end until Jack either completed it or he ran out of time and failure meant death.

Picking up the cube again, his hands started burning immediately. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Jack proceeded to change the slots on the cube. He tried to watch out for anything dangerous that he recognized but it wasn’t as simple as he had hoped. Moving the symbols on one face would move them for all the others. Keeping track of each of the cube’s faces and how they were moving had his head bobbing from the cube to the pictures on the wall.

Still, Jack kept coming across new symbols. Some were pleasant like when he discovered the rune for Rain or the one he was sure meant Time which caused an interesting disassociations sensation for him. But most were dangerous. Jack was electrocuted, bit multiple times, had his skin on his hands melted off, and created some kind of fog that smelled like something decaying and caused Jack to start puking until he managed to change the rune again.

His time and effort, while not helping him to get through the trial, was having an effect in a different way.

*Language Proficiency gain: Runic (25%)*

“Except that isn’t what I need right now,” Jack said to the empty air again. “I need the rune for Key.” Jack waited, but there wasn’t any response to his words. Not that he expected anything, but it didn’t hurt to try.

Jack kept at it. His Mend skill got a workout throughout the process. Jack used his Mana bar to determine time, going until it depleted and then taking a short break while it refilled. It took another fourteen full refills until he was finally staring at the Rune for Key. It showed on the wall, and it was beautiful.

Jack waited, but nothing happened. The cube didn’t open, and neither did the door. He wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen, but he prayed that he didn’t need to get the symbol for Key on all six sides.

Before attempting that gruesome task, Jack decided to take another look around the place. Anything would be better than that. There wasn’t much to inspect. The room remained bare except for the pictures and the walls. Placing the cube on the ground, Jack went over to inspect the picture of the Key. It was so real, like every picture that had appeared before, it almost looked like you could reach out and grab it.

That gave Jack pause. Why couldn’t he grab it? He hadn’t tried interacting with any of the other pictures before. He never had a reason to, but what appeared in the picture was real to at least the cube so maybe... He reached out and into the picture. He expected to touch the wall, everything in his mind told him he should be touching the wall, but his hand just kept going until his hand was touching the cool metal of the key inside the picture. Jack clasped the key and pulled it back out of the picture.

“Magic is weird,” Jack said in awe as he looked down at the key in his hand. “But where is the door?” He glanced back at the way he came into the room, but that didn’t have any keyhole that Jack could see. Looking back at the cube, he realized he was going to have to continue to work with the cube.

“At least I know the rune for Door,” Jack muttered, picking the cube back up. He went carefully this time. He already knew the rune; he just didn’t want to deal with any more random symbols appearing to get there.

It didn’t take long and soon Jack was looking at a picture of a door on the wall. Taking the key, Jack used it on the door in the picture and unlocked it. Pulling the door open, the image of Arbour appeared on the other side. Happy that a way out finally showed, Jack went through the opening without a second thought.

Jack appeared in the room with the Arbour again. Glancing back, Jack watched as a clear blue image hovered in the air for a moment before disappearing.

“Welcome back, and Congratulations,” Arbour said.

*Akashic Keeper Trial – Trial of Reason Completed*

*Quest reward: Spell (Rare) - Purge (Beginner)*

The world is full of unknowable dangers. You have learned the danger of the unknown and have overcome it in pursuit of your goals.

*Language Proficiency gain: Runic (32%)*

+2 Int.