Andrew Rowe - On the Shoulders of Titans

True, the location he led us toward was a sports arena — one used for vaban , a popular ball game designed for attuned. The vaban court itself, however, had been modified for our activity.

The arena floor was gray stone, about a hundred feet across and roughly fifty feet wide. Normally, the only marks would be dividing lines every ten feet to mark increments of distance.

Today, the court had been covered in square tiles etched with runes.

With a snap of Teft’s fingers, the squares began to glow a variety of colors—

In specific: red, orange, yellow, and green.

I noted that a handful of squares remained unchanged as well.

I did not like where this was going.

I hated colored tile puzzles.

From the groans of the students around me, I could tell that many of the other students agreed.

Teft gestured to the battlefield. “Today, you will be fighting in team matches on the field below. Rather than traditional dueling, this challenge combines the difficulties of dueling with the risks of a standard format for tower chambers — tiles with different magical effects.”

He glanced around to the class. “For the moment, divide yourself into teams of four.”

I breathed a sigh of relief at that, since I already had three people with me.

“Where’s Roland?” Patrick asked, glancing around.

I frowned, both because adding Roland into the formula would disrupt my perfect team of four and because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him.

Where was Roland?

He wasn’t in class, certainly.

“Don’t see him,” I replied, “But we’ve got a solid team of four right here.” I was talking about Patrick, Marissa, and Sera, of course.

“Might not be so wise, m’lord Corin. I’m still not in the best of fightin’ shape, nor is Sera. Maybe we could get a pass, given that we’re still recovering?”

It was savvy of Marissa to phrase it that way, since it didn’t put the entire burden on Sera. And, in fairness, Marissa was probably still recovering from that burst of extra mana that Katashi had given her. It had only been a few days since then, even if it felt like weeks.

…Wait; did Katashi use the Arbiter attunement to give her that power increase? Was his ability the same one that I have?

It seemed functionally similar, even if Katashi had the extra flashiness of drawing on the extra line of the rune for her next attunement level. He’d given her more than twice her previous maximum in mana, too, which I wasn’t supposed to do…

…But maybe that was the reason it was taking her so long to recover. It was possible Katashi had risked her health by giving her so much power at once, and it was also possible that he knew better than the Researcher did exactly how much power was safe to transfer at once.

Maybe there were other, more complex factors in play — for example, the Guardian attunement was defensive in nature, and that might have allowed Marissa to tolerate more mana safely. I didn’t know, but it seemed like it was worth researching eventually, or just asking Katashi about it if I saw him and didn’t have anything more important to discuss.

“I’ll go ask Teft if we can get you two excused from this, or maybe all four of us.” Patrick offered, jarring me out of my introspection. I nodded as Patrick headed in Teft’s direction.

I turned to Sera in the meantime. “Have you been feeling any better?”

Sera shrugged.

“I went to the Divinatory to do some research earlier. I found a few options we can investigate. I’ll tell you more after class.”

She gave me the weakest smile I’d ever seen, then turned her head away.

Patrick came back with Teft a few moments later.

Teft walked straight over to Sera. “Miss Cadence, I was aware that you were injured in the tower, but not the degree of severity. That said, there will be many times in life when you are forced to fight at a disadvantage.”

He folded his arms. “Given your circumstances, it is within reason for you to skip this week’s test to recover. If you choose to do so, I will give you a below average, but passing grade for the exam. Due to the structure, it would not be possible to take the test at a later time. Would you like to take that option? This is not a trick question.”

Sera glanced to the rest of us, her lips twisted into a frown.

Patrick put a hand on her shoulder. “We can handle this as a team, Sera! The four of us can handle whatever Teft throws at us.”

Sera turned her head to Patrick, her eyes meeting his. Then she nodded, and with new resolve, she turned back to Teft and curtly shook her head.

“Good.” Teft nodded in return, then turned his head to Patrick. “And because you’ve chosen to influence her, Master Wayland, you can be on her team. Your opponents,” my heart sank has he gestured, “Will be Master Cadence and Miss Callahan.”

I knew there would be a twist to this, I just hadn’t expected…

Resh.

“Your team will be up second.” Teft turned his back to us and walked away to split up the other teams.

“Well,” I glanced from side to side, “This is awkward.”

Patrick was full of resolve. “Sorry, Sera. Didn’t think he’d do that, but this is better in some ways. Uh, go easy on us, Mara?”

Sera stepped in between the two of them, put her hands up in a warding gesture, and shook her head vehemently.

I turned to Patrick. “Yeah, if you think Sera wants us to go easy, you haven’t been paying enough attention. She’ll murder me if she realizes I’m going easy on her.”

Sera raised a finger and made a throat-slitting gesture, her expression serious.

I said that, but the key part was “if she realizes”.

It was working, so I decided to add to the effect. “And, in truth, I’m not sure you’ll need it. Sera is vastly better with things like tile puzzles than I am. Don’t know about you, Mara.”

“I’m nae any good at them. Much better at punching things.”

Seems fair.

“Not sure how much that’ll help.” Patrick sounded dejected. “We don’t even know what they do yet.”

“I think that’s part of the point.” I jerked a thumb at Teft. “He’ll probably give us some basic rules in a few minutes, after he’s done splitting up the other teams, then we’ll have to figure out how the tiles work once we’re in there.”

We chatted for a couple more minutes. Teft did another round of walking to every group, checking on the status of our shield sigils, then headed back to the front of the class to address everyone.

“You will not always be able to choose who your allies — and who your enemies — are. For today’s test, you face a scenario every soldier dreads: a battle against some of your closest allies. Or, in the case of some of you,” he scanned the crowd, “merely the people you thought would make the most efficient team.

“In either case, you very likely know something of the abilities of your opponents, and vice versa. This will be a test of both your combat abilities and your knowledge of how to counter the tactics of your rivals.”

I caught Sera’s eyes. The tip of her mouth curled up just slightly.

She’d always dominated me at games of strategy. Valor, Crowns…it didn’t matter which.

“This test,” Teft waved at the arena, “will be a simple one, but not an easy one. Each colored square has a different effect. Some are beneficial, some are detrimental. Both the layout and the effects of each square vary between matches, and thus, fighting later will not offer you an information advantage.”

I heard a few groans at that, but I didn’t agree with Teft’s assessment. Not entirely. If there was a discrete list of possible effects, we could learn those from early matches and have an idea of what some of the squares might be, even if the specifics were different.