Karl stared at the words on the sheet. He didn’t recall coming up with an actual answer, but he supposed that was an answer on its own.
This test was the most confusing trial he had been through so far, and he had no idea how he was even doing. He didn’t even know what the standard was that he was aiming for.
Then the desk vanished, and he found himself at another temple with steps up the side, identical to the one in the last Trial Instance. Except this time, every side but one was shrouded in dark mist.
Karl walked over to the stairs, and found himself looking at the sign in annoyance. It was again in a language that he couldn’t read. But the picture had a person stepping up the stairs and an arrow. That would be clear enough for anyone to understand what it wanted.
So, he stepped onto the stairs, and a soft sound like a tambourine’s cymbals jingled. He stepped again, and it was a bit louder and longer. There was no appreciable resistance as he walked, so he just kept going, listening to the song that the cymbals were playing until they were joined by a drum beat.
At first, it only beat with every stair, but it was slowly gaining a beat as he moved up the stairs.
Then a flute joined the music, and a heavy weight seemed to descend on his shoulders, making every step a challenge. The Refreshing Lightning barrier seemed to help, and the mana flowing through his body helped keep him focused as he realized that he knew this song.
It wasn’t some Divine Hymn, or some ancient ballad, it was a rhythmic working song that the miners sang, that Karl knew by the name “Give the working man a chance”. It was about hard work getting you nowhere, and that the only way to true power was to take it by force.
The song was officially banned in the mines, but not because it was a revolutionary theme song. The lyrics he knew advocated murdering the boss and taking over his job when you knew you could do a better job.
Karl sang along as he trudged up the steps, and that strange sense of amusement that he had felt on the steps after the trial appeared again. One of the Gods must know this song.
Or his version of the lyrics were so very wrong that they were laughing at him missing the point.
Six steps later, a familiar ache, like the end of a full shift swinging a pickaxe, had settled into his bones and muscles, but still Karl pushed forward, until he found that he couldn’t take another step.
As it had been on the fate steps, it was simply impossible to move forward. No matter where you put your foot, you somehow ended up on the same step.
This was a trial, so there should be some way forward, he assumed. Karl poured extra energy into the Refreshing Lightning Barrier, and slid his foot up the step.
That got it onto the next stair, but when he put weight on it, he found it back on the same step as his other foot.
So, he added more power with Shred and Rend both activated. Now he was on the step, and the other foot came up behind it. After a half second that felt like hours, both feet were on the next step, and a flow of power was entering his body, refreshing his aching muscles, then he was flying through the air, away from the temple.
It was ironically familiar after his attempt to jump straight up on the stairs in the last trial instance, but he landed on his feet with a solid impact that left a ten-metre-long furrow and made the Refreshing Lightning barrier flicker.
The scene faded, and he found himself in the first room again, but this time he was facing the open bronze door, where he could see the Academy Matron and Alice waiting for him. The others were out of his line of sight, but the Matron was smiling at him.
“There is no need to discuss the trials you faced. They are different for everyone, and it won’t help them to know what you faced. Congratulations, Ascended Elite Karl, you have passed the test.” She announced.
The claw marks on his arm were glowing bright gold, and Karl let out a sigh of relief.
“That was a short test. Most of them take over an hour, but you’re out again in under thirty minutes.” Rita noted as Karl stepped out of the temple.
“Half an hour? It didn’t feel quite that short. Though that last trial messes with your sense of time, so I suppose that could be right.” Karl replied.
Rita waved off his efforts to explain.
“You can keep the content of your trial a secret. They often contain some sort of spiritual or personal revelation that will help you in the future.” She explained.
A revelation that would help him in the future? Unless there were less violent lyrics for that song which had been playing, the trial probably hadn’t given him any sort of deep moral lesson.
Karl found himself whistling the song that had been playing in the trial, and one of the High Priests gave him a strange look.
“Do you know that hymn?”
Karl gave him an equally confused look. “Hymn? As far as I know, it’s a worker’s song, with a rhythm to swing a pickaxe to. It was playing in the trial, and it got stuck in my head.”
The old man nodded. “I heard it once about fifty years ago, in my own trial for High Priest. I couldn’t find anything about it, though. Even when I spent half a year looking through hymn books, old musical sheets and composition records.”
Karl laughed. “This one won’t be in any written record. If you have some time, go ask the miners to sing it for you. But don’t ask in front of the foreman or the boss because the song is banned.”
The old man smirked. “Why should I wait? You know it, and we’ve got a few minutes before the others finish. I assume that you’re intending to wait to see how Brother Doug and your friends do.”
Karl nodded. “Sure, just give me a moment, I need some sort of instrument to keep rhythm if I’m going to sing.”
Rita smiled and took out a pair of spoons. “I know the song as well. I will keep time, you sing. I bet that the miners’ version of the lyrics are more fun than the ones I know.”
The old cleric looked intrigued, and he had already pulled out a notepad and pencil to write down the lyrics, and possibly write the musical sheets for the song.
She took up the rhythm with the clacking of the spoons in place of the tambourine, and Karl started to sing the lyrics, while the clerics all looked vaguely scandalized, except the Red Dragon High Priestess, who began to sing along after a few verses.
She knew the same lyrics that Karl did, and the old cleric looked annoyed that he had looked for so long, and the answer was right in front of him, but so different from what he had expected that he wasn’t asking the right questions.
When they got to the end of the song, with the line “Throw him down the shaft and give the working man a chance”, the Red Dragon cleric laughed, and the other High Priests and Priestesses clapped in appreciation.
Rita shook her head and wrote out an alternate version for the cleric. “These are the words that I know. I grew up right by the border, so it might be regionally different, but the rhythm is the same. It’s not a song you will hear much in public, just when the lowest class are working hard and not particularly happy with their employer.”
“Amazing. Thank you all for your assistance. Now, I must plan a journey to find the original version that all of these derived from.” He insisted, then wandered away to do exactly that.
The group patiently waited for the others to come out, mostly with a quiet professionalism, but every few minutes the Red Dragon High Priestess would begin to whistle a song, and someone would laugh, annoying the other clerics who were trying to focus on something while they waited.
The first to appear was Doug, whose plain green robe was now layered with black and gold underneath, and his class marking was glowing bright gold.
“Welcome back, High Priest Douglas Cormac Mackenzie.” The Matron greeted him.
Doug winced. “Really? You had to full name me?”
The old woman smiled. “Of course. You’re a dignified High Priest now, everyone gets to full name you. How else will they remain reverent of your power when you’re happier playing in the garden and getting the guards high on their days off?”
Doug whistled and looked away, pretending to be innocent, but not fooling anyone.
“Well, it is good to be a High Priest anyhow. I believe my Goddess is happy with my work.” Doug replied with a reverent tone when he spoke of the Dragon God of Nature.
The other clerics chuckled at his pronouncement, long since used to the carefree ways of the nature Priests. Little things like rules and regulations never bothered them much, unless they interfered with the natural order of things.
They couldn’t even be counted on to prevent violence among the students because, in their words, “sometimes people deserve a punch in the face”. But on the other hand, you could count on them to deal with the matter fairly after it happened.
