Listen to the wizard

“Congratulations, brave ones,” says the wizard. The light on the floor that he came out of disappears, and the old man now stands before you with his arms raised. His gray beard reaches down to his gut, well-kept but not especially styled in any way. “You have made it to the end of the first trial. As a show of good faith, I shall now tell you a little bit about this place, and the task you have undertaken here.” Blythe comes up by your side and draws her rapier an inch out of its scabbard. Lia stays behind you for now, and you don’t look back despite being curious how she looks with her new outfit.

“First, allow me to apologize to any mages among you,” says the old wizard. “As a magic user myself, I understand that it must have been quite difficult for you to be without your magic for a time. Fear not, as that restriction will be lifted for the remaining six trials. I simply could not allow you to light your way through the labyrinth, you understand.” The man’s hands fall to his sides, then come together over his pelvis. “More than that, I’m sure you’re interested in where you currently stand. You may be wondering how I’ve built all this underneath the forest, hm? The answer is simple: we are not currently underneath the forest. This is my own personal dimension, a tear in reality that I opened as a boy. After that, I spent decades researching magic, honing my craft, and building this place piece by piece. These trials are my life’s work, my magnum opus, my — but I digress. Not a single trace of you remains in the forest at this time, such is the nature of this magic.

“On to the trials themselves,” he continues. “There are seven in all. Four of them take inspiration from the four cardinal elements of magic: Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. These will simply have you complete a task. The remaining three, one of which you find yourselves at the end of now, are unique. Each will have you complete a task, after which there will be a final test before you will be allowed to move on. The task, I will allow you to complete as a group; teamwork is itself an aspect of greatness, after all. However, I must insist that every challenger completes the final tests individually. Many threads, when bound together, make strong rope. However, if one link in a chain is too weak, then the entire chain may be broken.” The wizard closes his eyes and lowers his head for a moment.

“I will now administer the final test for this trial of the mind,” he says.

Everything is gone. You stand in an endless void of swirling colors, just like when you touched the doorknob to enter the maze. In front of you is the wizard, standing exactly as he was a second ago. He raises his head, eyes open and staring directly into your soul.

“For one to achieve greatness,” he says, “they must have a mind capable of wielding the secrets of all things. Demonstrate your aptitude now by sharing knowledge that is not yet known to me. I promise to fairly admit defeat should you pass this test, though I warn you it will be difficult. I am the wizard Hesperos. My wealth of knowledge is unparalleled in this world.”

He stands there, almost frozen in place, and waits for you to respond. What. The. Fuck. What am I supposed to tell this guy? He’s an old, all-knowing wizard with a goddamn pocket dimension for fuck’s sake. There’s no way a guy like me, who didn’t even know how to turn off a light a few days ago, could know anything this guy… wait. Hold on. I’m from Earth. Fucking. Earth. Could I just teach him some English? No, if I’m the only one who speaks it, it’s not even a language at that point, is it? Still, there’s got to be something, some random thing that I know that someone from a fantasy world like this one wouldn’t even care to learn.

Suddenly, a thought occurs to you. “How do you think babies are made?”

If the wizard is surprised or confused by your question, he doesn’t show it. In fact, he hardly reacts at all. “Questions probing at my knowledge are prohibited,” he says after a second. I guess that would be a rule, you think. But surely he knows about sex. What he might not know is the science of it, right? Hell, I hardly know the science of it, but I’ve got to know more than a wizard living in a world watched over by a purity goddess, right?

“Alright,” you say. “In that case, I’ll just assume you’re mistaken. You see…”

You spend the next several minutes explaining the science of sperm, eggs, ovulation, fertilization, and menstruation to the old man. Basically, you spout a stream of consciousness rant about reproductive anatomy based off of what you can remember from the one Sex Ed class you took back in high school. At the end of it, you feel incredibly tired, but also fairly confident that at least some of the stuff you said isn’t anything this wizard would have ever researched.

Once you finish, he takes a long time to think over what you said. With a hand running through his long, gray beard, the wizard ponders your knowledge of why women bleed every month, and how men’s cum swims around on its own. You start to worry as he continues standing there in silence, but he eventually nods and places his hands back at his pelvis. “That knowledge is acceptable,” he says.

You’re suddenly back in the center room of the labyrinth. Blythe stands beside you, totally motionless with her eyes closed and her hand still gripping her rapier. You turn and see Lia much in the same state. Instead of the new look you were hoping for, she’s still covering herself completely with the cloak. As you consider peeking beneath it, Lia blinks and seems to come back to life. Her eyes register you looking at her, and she blushes a bit. Could she tell what I was thinking of doing? Nah, if she could she’s the type that would have decked me for thinking like that. A shuffling sound next to you announces that Blythe is also back to the land of the living now.

“You have each completed the final test of this trial,” says Hesperos the wizard. You turn back to face him again, and Lia comes up beside you opposite Blythe. “I look forward to monitoring your progress.” He then sinks back into the floor with the same magical portal bullshit he seems to like using. As soon as he completely disappears, a glowing circle of blue light appears on the ground in the center of the room. The area inside the circle is covered in the same runes as the door was at the start of this whole ordeal. The gate to the next trial, I presume.

“Hey, out of curiosity, what did you two say for your answer?” you ask. To your surprise, both Blythe and Lia get flustered and look away from you.

“W-what about you, huh?” Lia says. “What did you tell him?”

Apparently you weren’t the only one to go for something a little embarrassing to admit. You all agree to keep your secrets for now.