Trials: Page 1

I sat down in one of the chairs and looked around. The room was entirely unfurnished and undecorated, with hardwood floors and plain gray walls. A second later, I saw the door open, and someone entered.

He was tall, probably had a little bit of orc blood in him, give his grayish skin. He stood about 6' 4" or so, and had a heavy jacket covered in snow. He brushed himself off and looked at the man at the desk curiously.

"Mr. Carson, take a seat."

He took off his jacket and sat next to me. We both nodded at each other and looked towards the door expectantly.

Over the next few minutes, the other three came in. A blonde human girl, another human man, a dwarvish man, and a half-elf girl.

Once we were all seated, the man at the desk spoke.

"Welcome, mages, to the trials. I will be your administrator. My name is Master Collins. Take a moment to familiarize yourselves."

The five of us turned and introduced ourselves to each other. Their names were Marcus, Katy, Damon, Matt, and Lexi. When we were all finished talking, Collins stood and handed each of us a paper and pencil.

"Please, write your name, the date, and a brief description of yourself. You have ten minutes."

Immediately, desks materialized in front of us. But a problem quickly revealed itself. No matter how much we tried, nothing ever came out. The pens were out of ink. The human girl, Mia, was the first to say something.

"Uh, Master Collins, our pens don-"

"Any talking for the duration of the written section of the trials will result in failure."

She shut up quickly. For the next few minutes, we all kinda scratched our heads. We can't ask for new pens, and our current pens don't work, so what do we do? As another minute ticked by, the sense of frustration among us grew. I glared at my pen in frustration. It was so annoying. How was this fair?! I wanted to join the Guild, but a stupid pen stood in my way?!

There was a pop, and the pen fucking exploded. In an instant, my shirt and face were covered in ink. White ink.

The pens did work, we just couldn't see the ink on the blank white paper.

The other six people in the room stared at me in shock. Master Collins wordlessly set another pen in front of me and replaced my paper with a new one.

Now knowing that the pens in fact did work, we all wrote the information requested, albeit likely with much worse handwriting than we normally would. A timer went off, and Master Collins collected the papers and set them in a neat pile on his desk. he waved a hand in my direction, and the white liquid covering my face, neck, and shirt faded.

"Now that you have completed the written section, it's time for the physical portion."

He walked across the room and placed a metal cube onto a marble pedestal.

"One at a time, you will each go up. Your task is to destroy the cube by whatever means you see fit. Mr. Carson, you're first."

One at a time my peers stepped up and completed the task. Whether they sliced it to pieces, melted it, flattened it, or in Lexi's case, straight up disintegrated it. Each time it reformed, and suddenly, far sooner than I had expected, it was my turn. I was so nervous. I didn't know any spells that I thought could destroy it.

I stood there, just ten feet from the cube, racking my brain. I had exploded a pen on accident, maybe I could do that again. Except, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't make myself that angry again. That rage had disappeared and was now replaced by sheer panic, desperation, and fear.

"Mr. Johnson, any day n-"

The cube fucking exploded. No no no, let me contextualize. That pen exploded, the cube went thermonuclear. Master Collins threw his hands up, and a clear magical wall blocked the fucking blast wave of molten metal. Had he been any slower, we would have been seriously hurt.

"Uh, very good, all of you. Let's move on to the exam."

Thankfully, the exam was just a normal test. One hundred multiple-choice questions, fifty about history, twenty-five about potions, and twenty-five about spells. I whizzed through this part. It turns out, having exclusively been taught by the best tutors money can buy is somewhat beneficial to one's test-taking skills. We all handed in the papers, and we were given the penultimate trial. A puzzle box.

As soon as we touched the puzzles, a thick smoke surrounded our hands. Shocker, none of us did well. I seriously don't how any of us did this. In the 10 minutes allotted, only the half-elf girl, Lexi, actually managed to solve it. She smiled snuggly at all of us while we placed our unsolved cubes on Collins' desk.

Now came the final trial. The one everyone knew about and everyone dreaded. The only one that every student did. The Trial of Combat.

We were all paired up and were teleported into a different room, gods know where. I turned and faced my opponent. It was the half-elf. In her left hand was a red cloth, and in my right was a blue cloth.

A bell rang out, and she lunged.