Chapter 39: The Trial of Courage

-Energy Nede, Chisato

Recalling stories from her student days, Chisato told the others that the field of courage is where many of the attempts to pass this trial stopped. The Trials of Hope and Intelligence were easy enough for most, but there were many stories of people who'd gotten lost for days here. One of her classmates had even used the rune codes to warp out when he finally solved the initial puzzle, only to find out that it had reset when he did so. "But apparently it can be solved quickly too," she said. "I suppose it depends on how you react to the field."

"Then what are we supposed to do here?" Claude asked.

As opposed to the created look of the Field of Intelligence, the Field of Courage appeared as though it had simply been placed in a natural cavern. It was quite a colorful place, with blue and green stones making up the walls and multicolored crystals spread all around giving light to the cave tunnels. The trouble was that there were five different tunnels to pick from in this one room, not including the one that had brought them here. While there was a stone slab with the rune codes on it right that, it was not as much help as the intelligence once had been: 'Set off with Courage, driving on through the unknown. Make your way forward.'

She shrugged. "They wouldn't say, but it has something to do with small statues. One thing I do know is that the reason people got hopelessly lost in here is because there are enchantments on every tunnel entrance. They mix up the ways so you don't know where exactly you'll come out. The sign may say to move forward, but in order to get to the room straight ahead of the entrance, you might need to take the tunnel to the left. Or even go back the way you came, since it won't lead the same way. Apparently identification spells won't always pick up the enchantments or where they lead."

"Oh, so a map wouldn't even help," Rena said, puzzled about how to get through.

"This place is unnerving," Leon said.

"There's a great many monsters in these caves, that's probably what you're hearing," Noel said. "They're artificial constructs too, meant to always be here to challenge those on the trials. But the enchantment maze shouldn't be a problem for you. Listen to the stream."

"What about it?" he asked, looking down at the small thread of water winding its way down the tunnels.

Noel closed his eyes. "Which ways should it be flowing? If the transition sounds unnatural, then it's probably the wrong way. The air and the rocks tell me the same thing, but I want to see if you can do this. It's good practice."

"That makes sense," Leon said, impressed.

"Guess that means we don't risk as much to getting lost," Claude said. "Let's go ahead and try this one out. Unless anyone has objections?"

"Nah, I can handle another trial," Chisato said. And right as she did, those colored sparkles whirled around her and transported her to the back side of this trial. "Welp, guess we're taking this trial anyhow."

"At least it was nice enough to let us discuss it before spiriting us off," Ernest said, looking around the room they ended up in. "Courage, huh? I remember one time when I was asked to prove my courage in a ruins and it wanted me to jump off a ledge into a pit of spikes. Only, the spikes were illusions meant to keep people from going down there after treasure."

"And you jumped in?" Chisato asked.

He nodded. "Of course… after I tossed a stick down there and saw that it passed right through the illusionary spikes. I'm not afraid to prove my courage, but I'm not stupid either."

She laughed, "Right. Let's see what we've got in exchange for the twisted passages puzzle."

"In a way, I'm glad that I don't have to deal with that," Ernest said, heading over to a slab that was in the corner of the room.

Pausing a moment, Chisato looked down at the floor. The outer edge of it was stone, but in the center there were spotless white ceramic tiles, with strips of gold to divide them up into sixteen even squares. One room, off in the top right corner, had a star engraved on it. That probably was a clue. Or a map; she realized that when she looked at the stone slab. 'Set off with Courage, driving on through the unknown. Make your way to the exit while passing through each room once and only once. It you reach the exit while missing a room on your path, the exit will be sealed. If you enter a room after passing through it already, a powerful foe will await you. It cannot be defeated until the puzzle is solved. If you need to reset the puzzle to start a new path, return to this room and press this button.'

"This could be very easy or a pain in the rear," Ernest said, thinking. He pulled a notebook and pen out of his coat pocket.

"I think the diagram on the floor is a map of this puzzle," Chisato said. "Then we've got sixteen rooms to pass through. The one with the star must be the exit, since it can't be this room." The corner rooms should have only two entrances, but this room had four. Thus, the entrance had to be in the middle somewhere.

"It could be the star, but I doubt it because of the number of doors," he said. "Seems like the best way is to plunge on in and run from the invincible boss a few times; we don't have enough information to avoid it yet."

She agreed, so after some thought and checking a compass (for purposes of map drawing), they decided to leave through the south exit. That led them to a three way hall, from the entrance they came in to exits in the east and west. Heading east got them into what seemed to be a corner room with a west and north exit. But heading around this western edge, they found no exit east to the room north of the entrance. The room that hall led to was another corner, south and west this time, so it gave them an idea of where they were.

In that corner, something new happened. There was a flickering of the air, then the corner room vanished. Instead, they were in a classroom of Giveaway University, along with ghosts of herself and some of her classmates. "Wait, what's this?"

Things shifted so that they were now the ghosts, and the others were real. "I think we need to see this," Ernest said.

Chisato's younger self was excited. "This is going to be an awesome trip, guys! Snowboarding is sure to be loads of fun."

"I'm not so sure about that," a male classmate said. "Seems too fast for being on a piece of board."

"You think the express ferry is too fast," she teased him.

He blushed. "Well it is. I can't stop worrying on it; much better just to be patient and wait on the relaxing ferries."

"At least the express ferry lets you have safety belts," a female classmate said. "Snowboarding only has those feet straps to keep it on! What happens if you break some bones and have to wait on people to get up to you to help?"

"Why're you worrying about breaking bones?" Chisato asked. "It's no big deal; I've had broken bones before and once you get into a healer's care, it's not so bad."

"I'd rather avoid the pain," she said.

"I hear some of the slopes are near the field of power… I mean strength, that one," another male classmate said.

"There might be monsters on the slopes too?" the other male classmate said, fearful.

"Not unless the guardian is asleep on the job," Chisato said. "That would just be some extra excitement on the trip." At the wary looks of her classmates, she frowned and put a hand on her hip. "Aw come on, we could handle a monster or two. You guys all know magic and I can punch them silly. It'll be no problem! Maybe we could even sneak into the field to peek in on what you'll be doing."

"I really don't want to get hurt on my vacation."

"Yeah, and I don't think you can get into the field from that point. The magic shields and barriers would keep you out."

"Well then why are you worried about stray monsters if those barriers are in place?" Chisato asked, annoyed. Then they quickly faded away, leaving her and Ernest back in the corner room.

"They seem excessively worried to me," Ernest said. "I would have loved some natural mountains to ski or board on when I was a teenager."

"Attitudes like theirs are unfortunately common around Energy Nede," she said. "I know now that the only reason they keep those ski slopes open is because it's a few jobs to keep people employed and enough people are interested in sledding on short slopes to keep them going. On the other hand, those who actually want to ski or snowboard like me are different."

"No wonder they can't get far in the trials then," he said, then checked on his notebook. "Well we know where we are in the puzzle now, but if not all of the doors will be open, we should hit every room to find the layout. Loop around the outside?"

"Sure." And they headed off.

This plan led to some trouble when they came to the room west of the exit and didn't find a way into that room. It could only be entered from the south. Another bad layout ended up taking them back to the room south of the entrance. Right as they entered that three way hall, a large purple and blue beast dropped through the ceiling onto the intersection. It looked like a panther with an ox's long horns angled back on its head and some black spikes along its spine. Nearly filling up the narrow halls, it didn't have a lot of room to maneuver. Chisato took a step back, but found that the door had sealed right behind them.

"Want to find out how invincible it is?" Chisato asked, smiling as she prepared a heraldic device she'd taken. Once she hurled it, it turned into a giant skull that spewed a toxic green gas at the beast. The panther roared before sending its own breath attack at the skull, one that looked like violet flames. The gas skull soon reverted to its inactive state and returned to her.

"Could be a tough one," Ernest said, snapping his whip at it. Now that it had been unsealed from its locked form, his whip was no longer made of a visible leather-like material. Instead, it was a barely visible wire that sometimes flickered in the air like a momentary reflective shine. It had a high-pitched snap and Chisato found herself wonder how he knew where he was attacking with it. Still, it reached across thirty feet of hallway to slice into the beast's face. The wound healed up immediately. "Huh. Well let's trust Opera's work and see about getting it stunned to run past." He flicked a dial on the whip's handle and attacked again.

This time, a bolt of lighting snapped between Ernest and the beast, knocking the latter back a few feet and causing it to growl. Chisato didn't even wait to see if it was enough time and rushed for the north hallway to get to the entrance and reset the puzzle. Ernest was right after her and thankfully the beast didn't pursue them into the entrance.

Chisato hit the button, only to see one of those flickers again. This time, it gave them a place that was unfamiliar to her. It was some kind of bar or smoker's lounge, given the game tables, couches around tables, the wait staff (mostly waitresses in sexy attire) and smokey air. There was quite a variety of beings here, but the majority seemed to be the three-eyed humanoids like Ernest.

The past version of Ernest was there too, smoking with a few others. "It probably will be boring, but I don't think I should skip out on it. Opera's gotten her history masters now and I should be there to support her."

"Then is she your girl or not?" one of his friends asked. "You don't seem that enthused."

"Mostly the party afterwards with her family," Ernest said. "Those people… they'll act like the slightest misstep in manners is a crime. I don't want to have to worry about exactly how I'm eating on top of stress from dealing with the snobbier Vectras."

"What about her?" his friend asked again.

Ernest shrugged. "I'm not sure. She's the most tolerable of the bunch and she's helped me out a lot. And I don't want to get her father mad, not after he's sponsored some of my archaeology trips."

His friend shook his head. "Hey now, don't be wishy-washy on this. It is nice that you've got connections to the Vectras, but you really want to be tied down to them? What happened to our group being the wandering adventurers, going to explore the far reaches of the galaxy without any wives to keep us tied to home?"

"Wasn't going to happen after he got married," one of the other guys said, pointing to another member of the group who laughed at them.

"Well I've been out on more adventures than the rest of you," Ernest said, smirking. But that didn't last long. "She'd come with me… heck, she already does most of the time now. Just not sure what to think of her lately."

"Forget about her; I don't think the money is worth being among the snobs of elite society who wouldn't dare soil their fine clothes walking on natural land."

"No, I don't think you'll come that close to someone like her again," his married friend said. "You two always seem to get along great when I see you together. I'm sure if you think about it, you won't want to let her go."

"Well it's not like I need a girlfriend," Ernest said, rubbing his head. "But she, well…" and it ended there.

"That's not what I was expecting to see," Ernest said, distracted briefly from the puzzle.

"I'm not sure how that connects to courage," Chisato said. "Anyhow, we've just got to check on the layouts of the rooms north and east of this one, right? It shouldn't be hard to walk in, take notes, then come back in here and hit he button. That beast shouldn't even show up."

He nodded. "Right, and we can figure out the best path from there."

It really was as simple as that. Now that they knew where the entrance room sat in the configuration and what paths were blocked off, finding one path through all sixteen rooms was no trouble. Then they had to face the violet beast again in the room with the exit. This room had more open space for it to run around in. And it was quick, dashing around in quick spurts to claw or bite them. While it was keeping the damage it took now, Chisato wasn't able to do much to its tough hide. Instead, she kept its attention and kept away from it, giving Ernest more strikes at it from a distance with his whip. It eventually picked up on her trickery and focused on him, so she had to release her skull weapon again to distract it.

After a couple minutes, the beast dissolved into smoke. But the smoke didn't leave. Instead, it reformed into the beast again, whole and unhurt. It roared and the whole room shimmered, bringing a rather disoriented vision to them. It started with Ernest walking with Opera in a festival setting. "Well I got into a real problem with this last trip," Ernest said. "The ruins looked so simple, but the enchantments on it kept multiplying the rooms, at least it felt that way."

"Yeah, it didn't help that ninety percent of them looked exactly the same," Opera said, nodding.

"But we got out of it; I think I'll leave that one to someone who knows how to deal with it."

Then it jumped to Chisato in the mayor's office. Narl and the lead editor were there with her. "You had no right to go publishing that piece without letting us know you were releasing that information," Narl said harshly.

"But nearly everyone is emotionally attached to the Expel stories," Chisato argued. "What right do you have to keep the truth from them?"

The editor meekly said, "This isn't about the truth; it's about preventing mass panic. We're a closed off world, there isn't a lot we can do about problems on other planets."

"Well how were you planning on hiding the fact that we're going to crash into another world, huh? You can see Expel's shadow in the sky now if you know what you're looking for. Or do you have plans for stopping the Ten Wise Men from doing that?"

"We're working on it," Narl said. "But we weren't ready to let everyone know what's going on."

The next shift was to Jibril and the angelic girl who had been at the Fienal Plaza battle. She was taking off a hooded cloak to reveal her wings. "I-I just wanted to go out, um, that's it."

"And I told you, it's too dangerous for you to be out of the tower," Jibril said. "Especially with the more trigger happy guys paying attention to that place. Indalecio wants you here."

"Er, well…" she looked down, nervously brushing a foot on the floor.

Jibril moved along the floor in a smooth movement, like he had no legs and glided along through some other method. "It's not much use warning those people either. None of them believed you; that's just how the universe is everywhere. Just be patient with the rest of us and things will be as they should." Then he left her alone in the pretty room he'd taken her to.

The angelic girl walked over to the window and looked out. "How long has it been since I lived? And why did you bring me back just to end it all? I wish I could tell you…"

Then the scene moved back to Chisato in Narl's office. She had her arms crossed over her chest as she stood in front of the mayor's large desk. "You all told me to report what was going on on Expel and I have. It just so happens that we're going to crash into it. I hope you all do have a plan to prevent it."

"We're working on it, but the public didn't need to know about it yet," Narl said. "They especially didn't need to hear about the Ten Wise Men again. You've undermined everyone's feeling of security by releasing this information and now we're going to have all sorts of unrest from people feeling helpless. It's my job to maintain the peace and order of Energy Nede, and to act against any who would threaten it."

"Then you're just going to lie to your people?!" she said angrily. "What use is peace if it's built on lies? Especially about the Ten Wise Men; you just want to keep everyone sedated with false peace, but whatever they do is going to end up affecting us. They might feel secure, but then those crazies will show up and slaughter them all. People should be warned so that everyone can make adequate preparations, not just your government."

"It's people like you who ruined Nede before," Narl said.

The scene then jumped back to Ernest and Opera. "That might have been the end of me if you hadn't shown up with extra supplies and more hints on how we might get out of there," he said, not quite looking at her. "I really shouldn't rely on you for that, but you do come through for me, and, uh…"

"I don't mind helping you," Opera said, smiling brightly.

"Yeah, thanks, I just," he scratched his head.

After an awkward silence, Opera got a mischievous look in her eyes as she grabbed his upper arm. "Hey, so you know how the archaeology club was going to make a hunted house ruins kind of thing? I'm sure you must have seen their plans; any ideas on how we can sneak in and scare them silly?"

Ernest quickly grinned at that. "Yeah, sure, they thought they were getting clever but between the two of us, it's going to be a breeze. Can we go by your office to pick up some masks?"

And the visions ended, leaving Chisato and Ernest with the large violet beast. It snorted, then clearly said, "You'd jump right into a pit of spikes but can't tell a woman you love her?"

Ernest turned pink at that. "Ah, yes…. Well the spikes would only hurt once if I was wrong. Her family could make life a living hell for me every single day if they were of mind to."

"I guess there are different forms of courage then," Chisato said, amused at this.

"There's also a difference between courage and brazen recklessness," the beast said to her. "Although I could be more forgiving in your case. Modern Nedians are so comfortable where they are that it does take a good scare to get them into action, present company excluded. But even when you have courage, it doesn't matter if it's your only value with nothing to back it."

"It's not," she said. "Narl keeps telling me that I don't have the authority to do what I do much of the time, but I think it's more important to let people know what's going on."

"We did use more intelligence and logic than courage to solve your puzzle," Ernest said to it, holding up his notebook with his map.

It snorted again. "You ought to see the amount of people who would rather give up than face something said to be invincible. Very well, you've passed my trial for the most part."

"For the most part?" Chisato asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You're fine," it said, then looked at Ernest. "Well? You're going to be fighting against people who've caused massacres that covered entire planets. When you beat them, then nobody will have any right to harass you for being who you are. Even if they don't know that, you will, as will she."

"All right, I'll talk with her," Ernest said. "I keep thinking I should, but things seemed to be trucking right along."

"They were talking about taking a break from the trials anyhow," Chisato said. "I don't think they'll argue with us if we say we want to stop for a day or so."

"Good," the beast said. "I'll decide if you're suitable when you return. For now, go ahead and take the three treasures by the stairs. They'll help you out." The beast then dissolved into smoke again, this time moving up into the ceiling and vanishing.

"What a weird guardian," Chisato said. "Didn't even give us a name."

"It might not think that's important," Ernest said.

The stairs in the back of the exit room went up into black smoke much like what the beast had turned into. At its base, there were three treasure chests. The first one Chisato opened held something that made her excited: a gun much like the stun gun she carried, but one that was an actual weapon as opposed to something to incapacitate a foe before running. It appeared to have a strong electric element, which mean she should be able to shoot lightning bolts around with Ernest.

The one Ernest opened held an odd device that was flat and almost like an overlarge data disk. "It's a plasma pack for rifles like Opera has," he explained. "This is a rare one too; the company never made a lot of white system packs. It turns the rifle into a healing machine, albeit one that can't handle severe injuries like broken bones."

"Well anything that can help us keep up healing on our side to match theirs is great for us," Chisato said, opening the third chest. It had something very different in it, and odd. It was a pair of pink boots with cute bunny pictures on the sides.

Ernest raised his eyebrows at that. "That's supposed to help us?"

"Hey, they might be enchanted," she said, smiling. "I think they're adorable! Well if you don't want them, I'll take them. I think they might even be my size, although I should go back to my place to get an outfit to go with them."

He laughed. "Well if we are going to take a break, why not? I hope they do have some kind of enchantment, but I'll pass if any more turn up."

They headed up the stairs, finding nothing keeping them from passing through the smoke. Once they were up on the upper floor, the smoke vanished and turned back to solid rock. There was a stone slab next to a hefty wooden door, but the slab only had the rune codes on it. Chisato figured it was the exit, which was quickly proven when the rest of their group came through one of the tunnels. "Hey, you're already done?" Rena said, smiling.

"Mostly," Chisato said. "How about you guys?"

"That was another really lame puzzle," Precis said. "We just had to move a bust from one stand to another; I don't see why anyone would have trouble getting past this, even though we had extra help avoiding the maze. Oh, but then there was a really awesome bot versus bot battle that you guys missed! And everyone else was awesome too, cause the robots couldn't stop us."

"They looked really tough, being all metal," Ashton said. "But once they got damaged, they were pretty much finished. What did you guys do?"

"We beat a simple logic puzzle and a weird beast for some adorable boots," Chisato said. "It was pretty fun. Oh, but we have been through three trials now and you all had to fight robots. How about we take a break here? I could go for a good meal, and a visit back to my place for something."

"Yeah, I'm sure Bobot needs to recharge too," Precis said, nodding.

"All right, then I hope the ferry did wait on us," Claude said, taking the rune codes up to the sign.

"Thanks for that," Ernest said to Chisato quietly, then went over to Opera. "Well I didn't make this, but I picked something up to help you out too."

Chisato grinned. Now she just had to make sure the rest were distracted with other things to give those two a moment alone. That shouldn't be too hard, as long as she moved quick.

-4D, chatroom

CJ*: Well now I feel bad about conflicting with Ernest and Opera's relationship.

Jeb*: I'm not sure it was entirely our reluctance, but it probably didn't help.

CJ*: At least she's in your wife's hands now, so that won't hold them back anymore.

CJ*: Although I've been thinking about what Enlo's been talking about.

Jeb*: That deal where he believes they're capable of being acknowledged as independent beings?

CJ*: Yeah. Because those two were drawn together even when we didn't want to play through that. Makes me wonder if we are more like guardian angels… but then how much do we really do for them? Immersion puts our mind in theirs and we can only think faintly of what our goals are.

Jeb*: I haven't really thought of that. Although, Penny and Nancy apparently saw something interesting during their trial with Precis and Opera.

Jeb*: It seems like Indalecio may be aware of us at least. He mentioned those on the other side, but dismissively.

CJ*: Enlo tells me that Leon and Noel are kind of aware of the players, but they can't really contact us. Maybe Indalecio is. But then, he's a really old character, isn't he?

Jeb*: Somebody like Blair might know better. We should ask her about it.