[center][h2]The Third Trial[/h2][/center]

As Ea Nebel entered the mouth of the cave

[right]ť̷̼ḥ̸͗e̸͓͌ ̶̹͆m̷̭͝o̷͔͘ṷ̶̉t̴̼́ḧ̸͎́ ̴̙̍o̷͑ͅf̷̻͒ ̴̛͙t̴͕̚h̸͚̊e̶͓͋ ̸̨̍c̵͇͐a̵̜̾v̸͔̕ê̸̘[/right]

[center]Ḁ̶͐s̴̛͍̠͖̿͘ ̶̧̔̈Ȩ̷͙̩͗̅a̸̩̼͆͗͠ ̸̩̻͒̓̊N̵̹̲͒͒e̶͉̎̚b̷̩̖̹̅̎͋e̶̦̘̐͆̈́l̴̪̭̹̑̿̉ ̸̧̩͉̀̓̿è̵̦̅͠n̷͐ͅt̸͎̂͋͝ȅ̸͚̭̪r̷̮͍̋͜͝ȩ̷̠̈̿͜d̸͇̊ [b]ţ̴͙̩̳̫̬̱̺̱̭̮̆͊͂͗̈͌͠ḩ̶̢̨̹̹̲̭̬̟͔̻̼̦̱͉̋̈̓͂̀̕͠ͅé̶̛͓̉̈́̄͊̿̇̚͜ ̴̻̺̥̜̪͌̄́͛̉́̈́̉͗̕͘͘͝m̸͓̲̦̑̅̐̎͋̐͒̃̕͝o̴̢̧̭̰̬̮̤͉͓͕̓͊̅͐̒̅̄͂̐ͅu̶̩̤̙͙͕̥̫̠͓̫̎͐͜t̸̟̬̯̼̼͖̑̍͆̀ͅͅͅḧ̷̼̥́̌̀ ̴̥͙̦̦͒̆̈́̿̔̾̈́͐̓͐͒̿̕͜͝͝ō̸̧͍̮̤f̵̡̧̨̡͈̝̹̰̯͖̣̱̬͕͔̰̈́̈̀͛̓̔̓̀̌͋̀ ̴͔̤͖̬̞̜̗͕̳̺̦̑̎͆̒̆́̃͌̀̈́̔̃̕͜t̸̹͕̀̆̈́̓̿̀̌͌͘̚̕h̵̹̣͙̹̮̮̩̣͍̭͍̹̱͓̄̓͜ę̶̛̫͓͈̤͖̲͚̊́͗̎̽̓̽̋͒̅̆̇͝ ̵͖͎̫̻̪͎́̾̓̉̔̂̅̏͒͠c̴̫̱̊̔̓͗̾̒̕ȁ̷̧̛̙͓̜͈̦̝̐̈́̆̄̅̽͘͝v̶̡͖̘̺͈̄̑̇͒͗͒͘͝ȩ̷̢̹̳̺͍͖͒̃̒̉̔̊̋̇̓͐ͅͅ[/b][/center]

[color=2e2c2c]...[/color]

As Ea Nebel entered the graveyard gate, the dense silver cloud that had enveloped her finally thinned, giving way to a light spectral mist that seemed to soften things rather than veiling them. The glow that permeated it, which in the bank under the plain iron archway had for a moment been almost blinding, dispersed along with it, as if to blunt a brightness unbecoming in a sombre place. Now it cast a pale leaden light like a cloudy sky in the fall, as it may well have been, for nothing could be seen in the heavens but a drowsy cap of grey.

Silence. The reverent fog let no sound louder than the crunch of the gravelly path underfoot trouble the repose of the dead.

The cemetery welcomed her with a cool, archaic neatness, as if it were itself the interior of some fantastic sepulchre. Irregular yet harmonious plots surrounded the winding paths like islets rising from the branches of a thin stream, faultless save for the odd tuft of weeds that had sprung up in the otherwise trimmed grass. Headstones filled them like the eaves of a peculiar harvest, lined in orderly rows regardless of disparity and punctuated by some ornamental cypress. Some were great, imposing things, angled and arched, covered with traceries and reliefs eroded by time. Others were humble granite slabs, sober and subdued in their inscriptions. What those were, she could not say for sure, for they were etched in some unknown alphabet of curves and circles, but it was easy enough to guess. Names, dates, the last farewells of those left behind.

The memories of those buried below were just as soothingly ordinary. They had been people like so many others. They had grieved, they had rejoiced, they had been mourned. Now, they rested.

Ahead, the paths turned and crossed in what would have been a maze if it had higher walls. Towards the heart of the graveyard, taller shapes rose between the quiescent rows, the columns and statues of crypts together with the domes of small chapels. And far beyond them, at what must have been the opposite end of this respectable little necropolis, a beam of white light shone through the mist, as if streaming from behind a great invisible door cracked open. Even from this distance, it stung her eyes with an unpleasant glare, and its presence in the gentle grey quiet grated like a crass intrusion.

A low creak sounded from behind her, and the iron gate closed with a click.

[colour=gainsboro]“...”[/colour]

There was no-one there.

When Ea Nebel stood still, the silence was total. There was not a breeze to tousle the grass, nor so much as a cricket. She could hear herself blinking. A more paranoid environment could scarcely be envisioned, and yet she was at ease. The isolation wasn’t lonely. The stones and slabs were as familiar as old toys, and she stroked them with her ungloved hand, back and forth, soothed by the texture. It was almost like an untroubled dream.

She picked a stray cornflower and laid it on the grave of a young child. She didn’t think even a single word as she did so. Were this place any other than what it was, she might have wondered where she had learned that habit. Were this place any other than what it was, its abandonment could be uncanny. But it wasn’t. When had these people lived? Had they been laid here by those who even now walked Galbar? Had they ever walked it themselves? It didn’t matter. She had found a place as far away as a forgotten memory. Here, under the grey sky, there was neither light nor shade. Here there was nothing more to be said or done. Here the [colour=gainsboro]Nebel[/colour] was satisfied. 

The godling swung her head to the tower of light. Easy to lose herself in the empty reverie, were that beam not ever trying to shine under the brim of her hat and make her squint. She was still under trial.

The light made her anxious, more than it annoyed her. Both her trials so far had strained Ea Nebel in their own way. This next would be no different. She had seen the grave of Luck, and doubted that hers would be sufficient to bypass a second riddle. The unknown necropolis was so restful that the only way she could see herself being set to the grindstone was by disturbing its peace, as the beacon did now. She sighed faintly and set off towards it with an unhurried step, missing her faithful boar’s unflinching step at her side.

Polished stone monuments grew taller and broader around her until she had to look up at them, not down. Their memories were wealthier, more storied. She didn’t stay long at any of them. Only long enough to notice that a marble bird-bath was not completely still, the way everything else was still. Ea Nebel frowned and looked down. There was a hagfish in there, wriggling away merrily at the bottom of the fountain pool, completely unaware of its misplacement. 

How strange. 

She kept walking.

The closer she came to the glaring beam, the wider it grew, until it was a veritable gap in the grey scenery. It parted both the fog and the iron fence of the cemetery, which in that spot alone offered the outer world entry into the sacrarium of the dead. For that was what it was; not merely an interloper, but a glimpse of what lay outside the tranquil little sea of grey.

And outside, there was death.

Not the placid, contented death of the graveyard, but the torturous doom of the forsaken. Over an arid plain of sun-cracked yellow earth, uncountable bones lay scattered to the winds. A great battle had evidently been fought there, sometime long ago. The files of immense armies were strewn as they had fought, desiccated fingers collapsed around the rusted stumps of sword and lance, eyes that had once locked in hatred staring emptily into the sky above. Horse and rider had been joined for the last time, centaurs of the battlefield now truly become as fanciful chimeras as their remains mingled. Like the crests of macabre hills, the remains of giants of legendary stature cast their frayed shadows over the blanched sea, their skulls alone as large as the crypts and chapels. Little had their puissance availed them, for they too had been brought low, as impotent as the humblest footman against that foe which none can surpass.

The heavens themselves seemed to be moved to bitterness by that desolate sight, for above the waste reigned the harsh white light, now outright painful to the eye when met directly. Torrid heat wafted from it, hard to bear even so far away, and a distant drone, faint but insistent, hung in the air, without apparent source nor purpose but to strain the ear and rankle the skull.

Around and behind her, the mists coiled invitingly, as if to call her away from that hellish vision and back into the recesses of the grave-paths.

The maiden’s fist clenched and unclenched. She pressed hard against her tragus and smeared her ear shut, deforming the flesh into a half-melted nothing on her face. Now she could feel the drone in her inner skull. She doffed her hat and pulled a dense veil over her face. It dimmed the light only a little, and made it almost impossible to see the bones in front of her. Her lips parted slightly from her clenched teeth. She grabbed the shovel leaning on the iron fence and swung its head against the bars, breaking the quiet of the necropolis with a loud clang. Only then, scowling, did she step through the door.

She measured that old abattoir before she broke ground. It was not infinite. There was a real battle written on the earth in the pattern of the chaos: here they had first clashed, perished, and been trampled; here they had fallen back to the next palisade, collapsing here and there under raining arrows as they formed new ranks. Evenly matched and armed, one side had finally broken. Their bodies were strewn far back behind the battlefield where the lancers had rode them down. Like a fistful of sand thrown to the wind.

Ea Nebel looked up. The beam was still there. The necropolis was still there. The light from the door was soft and silver. The further she travelled from the cool air of the portal, the hotter and louder this world became.

The war elephants were too large to grind down and set in an urn. They were livestock, anyway. The giants were much worse. Their bones could be left to posterity, to be mistaken for strange boulders and make a marker of the place, if anyone ever came here again, ever, until the end of time. Their skulls would need to be set into mounds, and each would be the work of months. They reflected the blinding light like snow, and Ea Nebel had to squint through her veil. She raised her hand to the blank, hot white of the sky. This was not Astalon. There was no sun. It would never be night. And at least Astalon had been quiet.

Quiet, like the graveyard.

Cities had been emptied for this unremembered war. There were more than a million skeletons, not counting horses, dogs, theropods, and other war-animals. Women had fought. Boys also. There were sixty-eight titans of the large kind, and hundreds of their lesser cousins. Many bodies had been crushed, others obliterated entirely. Ea Nebel turned around. The necropolis was still there.

[colour=gainsboro]“La da daa, di da, da da daa…”[/colour]

A little humming tune kept her focused, and she forced herself to sing it louder than the drone in her head. The giant graves could be erected with a multilayered sigil potentiated with the hypertones of a song, turning the work of many decades into… years. Then she could begin to inter the ordinary skulls in the mounds, according to their division. The titanic crania would provide space for men of rank. The skeletons...

[colour=gainsboro]“...”[/colour]

Ea Nebel sank down and sat crosslegged on the hot clay grit, rubbing her eyes with her palms and letting her head sink into her hands, gently chewing her tongue. She still hadn’t done anything. There was no riddle this time, none that she could see. This time she really [i]would[/i] have to count the flies. She pulled a timepiece from her coat and set it. She closed her eyes and inhaled, determined to rest in deep meditation, letting her thoughts drift away on the Flow. When she finally opened her eyes, almost twenty seconds had passed.

And the necropolis was still-

[colour=gainsboro]“GET OUT!”[/colour]

The beam didn’t waver. It shone in the middle of the fields of forgetting, the arch of a rain-worn chapel still visible inside, the only soothing thing in the Hell that surrounded her. The conditions of failure were abundantly clear now. There was no riddle here.

[colour=gainsboro]“Get out of here! Which one of you did this? Did you think you were being [i]clever?[/i] Did you think I would break for something so [i]trite?[/i] Was it you? Father? Do you think so little of me? Mother? Oh, no- [i]Homura,[/i] isn’t it? I wonder if you treat the [i]others[/i] like this. Pity for them! Maybe you, Grandfather, if only [i]you[/i] had the spine to do [i]anything[/i] yourself.”[/colour] She whipped the many-hued scarf from her neck and threw it away in a bundle. [colour=gainsboro]“Ooh, I feel cooler already. So much for you, you wet-eyed coward. Get out, all of you. Die and rot!”[/colour]

The last shout, like all that preceded it, was an incoherent mumble under the constant drone of the Hell-sky. The beam didn’t waver. She spat.

Time blurred along, the currents of the Flow making no perceivable ripples on its surface, cursing this world with a damnable smoothness that slid on and on with only the sensation of Ea Nebel’s fingernails digging into her palms to tick one moment over into the next. She lifted her head and stared once more into the beam, trying to make out a shape in the silver wash of mist. There was one. It was different.

Ea Nebel stood up at once. There, through the crack, a second doorway- a real door, a door she knew, [i]her[/i] door. Behind it she could make out the domed belfry of her little house, her house on the shore of the Tlaca. On the steps, a movement, a life: the arched back of the Iron Boar, rising and falling, sleeping, dreaming, waiting for its master. 

Waiting for her.

She had already choked on a sob before she knew it. Ea Nebel clenched her teeth and tightened her mouth as hard as she could, holding herself. Her hand pressed against her face and covered her eyes.

The sweat of her palms mingled with the tears welling up in her eyes, gently burning. The fluid glowed gently enough to pierce the thin of her eyelids, but not enough to seep out through the gaps in her fingers such that any others would notice the new presence; this was a sight meant only for her four eyes, blurred and shut as they might have been.

[color=9966CC]
With reckless abandon, her flesh lost form. It was as though her eyelids were of transparent glass, while her hands became puffs of fog with fingers made of smoky, wispy dreamstuff. No matter how tightly she tried to cover her eyes or squeeze them closed, she Saw.

The beam’s intensity remained, but it seemed a more distant and less troublesome thing at that moment. The incessant droning sound that had been there faded also, as if muffled by great distance. All of those woes were replaced by a more immediate, pressing one: darkened silhouettes of monstrous beings – Iqelins of all shapes and sizes – lurked waiting all around the outskirts of this great battlefield, silently leering at her and hoping against hope that she would abandon her charge. They were good at hiding from her sight, had been so good that until this moment she hadn’t even sensed their presence, but now she Saw them clearly through all the tricks and glamours. Most were waiting out there in the distance, but others were also hiding anywhere she might have looked for respite: in the shade, in the tunnels back behind from whence she’d entered this place, and yes, inside this little replica of her house. [i]Especially[/i] inside of there, they waited.

[i]”Ẏ̡oų̘͎̔̏͠r͙̥̦͗̅̏ f̳̪̂̕l͖̮̚̕y̭̚ ǫ̾͂͟f̝̪͎̏̾̚ ḁ͓̊̆ fȁ̩̯͠th̯̩́̊é͈̺̬̇̃r̡̼̱̔̌̈́ s̙̞̔́ē̯e̩͈͌͛k̺̋ṣ̦̓͆ ţ͠ó̻ t̂͜e͉̭͚̓͐̎s̢̛̱͍͑̓t͖͐ ỵ̹͊̀ó̼ur re͚̣̞͑͆̐s̤̬̓͛ol͈̪͈̂͘͡v͖͎̆̊͝ͅe̟̋,̭̎ y̯͛o̟̗̐͂ự͎̤͗̓ŕ̺͙̗̏̾ d̨͋ȇ̦̫̏d͑͟ḭ̈́c̪̺̏͗at͒ͅio̺͌n̥̫̠̎̈́͝ t̜̫̉̋o d̛̝͙̒ű̡̝͛t̡͓͇́͌́ỹ̜,̨̀”[/i] a lonely toadstool whispered to her from below, where it had sprouted out between two ribs of an ancient skeleton. 

[i]”Ṫ͉ō͟ le͈̿ä͕͚̋v̩͗ẽ̝ i͕̇s̲̊ ṫ̹o f̺͋aì̛̻̝l͎͙̑͞. So̳̔ e̫͝í̞t̙͒h̜͞e̛̗r͈̼̾̒ l͚̘̆͊eav̧̓e̟̕ a͎͗n̜̓ḏ͔̌͠ p͓͚͈̦̓͌͡͠ĕ̡̛̪͔̯͇͋̈̀̾ͅṟ͖̩͚̅͆̎̀̓͟i̡̛͖͇̹̩͇͒̈͂͘͝s̡̝͇̦̉̆̚͝h̭͖̖͔̱͂̃̆̔̕͟͞ á̳n̘͍͒̿d sp̠̼̎̽i͍̭̿̀t̰̤͑̍e ḩ̩̱̞͓͇̰̓͂̀͊̎́͠i̲̳̻̾̽̑͋ͅm̲̪̩̟̣̣͖͂̐̏͋̈͑͘,̨̡̊͝ or̓͢ [b]TOIL[/b] to p̺̹̀͊a̦͊s̞̓ṡ͔̠̈́,̯̇ a̝̞͛́nd͔̈ r͕͡e̫͑m̒͢e̦̒ṁ̢̟̃b̢̗͞͠ẻ̜ṛ͂ t̡̕hȉ̤s͎̆ fa̡̫̒̈́vö̦r wh͇͘ẽ̝n̯͡ ń̥̱͠ḛ̇x̜̋t w̱̌ë̛̜͓́ ś̠p͂͢e͓͊a̿̉͢ͅk.”[/i][/color]

Then toadstool’s conspiratorial whispering stopped, and through her tears she saw naught but darkness once again. She raised her hand from her eyes and the bones were bare and empty before her. Only a single heartbeat had passed in that span of time, but now, unnoticed by her judges, she’d been [i]given[/i] the answer.

But there was no riddle here. Ea Nebel already knew the answer. She [i]hated[/i] the answer. [colour=gainsboro]“Shut up,”[/colour] she whispered, to no one and everyone. [colour=gainsboro]“I will not leave. I will [i]not[/i] leave. Choke on it. I hope it sticks you through the throat.”[/colour] 

The necropolis beckoned again through the portal, its air cool, its light smooth. No matter how much she stared, she couldn’t See the hulking, crawling shapes of Iqelins seething over every stone like bloated spiders. Spiders creeping everywhere. Creeping through her home. Crawling on her skin. Ea Nebel looked out over the horizon where the heat was burning in. Everything shimmered, blurred with tears and heat. There, too, would be demons, writhing and creeping up her spine, along the endless horizon. Of course there were demons here. This was Hell. 

Ea Nebel shuddered and snapped her hand to the back of her neck, felt something soft in her fingers pushing back on her skin with its wriggling little legs, threw it down in front of her, her guts squirming. It didn’t have a head, didn’t have symmetry, just legs and proboscises and bloated abdomen. She splattered it under her heel, already feeling another creeping up her ankle. She swatted it down and broke into a sprint, leaping at once up to the high top of a titan’s skull, where the ground was smooth and white and fire-hot and nothing crawled except the horizon around her in every direction. She crouched and rocked back and forth, holding her head and mouth, trying not to vomit.

[colour=gainsboro]“How about… [i]you[/i] leave.”[/colour]

Ea Nebel threw back her veil and squinted into the blinding light, seeing nothing and Seeing nothing. Tiny bugs and maggots crept up and down the horizon just like they crept up and down the lines of her fingers in front of her eyes. She stared and stared until her eyes adjusted and they did not go away- this time she [i]saw[/i] them, with [i]her[/i] eyes, far far in the distance. She pulled a stiletto from her coat with trembling hands, flipped it back-hand, and popped out the blade.

Her boots hit the ground with a crunch of grit that was lost in the roaring drone and then she was sprinting, crushing bugs and bones alike, faster than a hawk, her blood hotter than Hell. The battlefield flashed away behind her in seconds as the Iqelins on the horizon grew closer and closer. They were huge, colourless, liquid, dripping, like tar-sand, a misshapen nightmare of a being she had never, ever seen. Their bodies were like mites, so swollen and bulbous as to be almost spherical, their legs like gnarled fingers with far too many knuckles, breaching and and out of its surface like capsized ships in storm. The greatest one was closest, towering over the titan-skulls she’d left behind her; Ea Nebel leapt onto its flank, sinking her hands into gritty choking slime, and heaved herself up on top of it, all the way to the height of its back, and slammed her knife into its skin with her fist.

She stuck that demon over and over and over again on hands and knees and every time she made a hole it splattered her with blood; human blood, bright like candy, sugary in her mouth like the oily crust of bile on its body was honey to her; and it felt like stabbing a thick mushroom, and when she looked she saw that it [i]was[/i] a mushroom, with moist rubbery gills and stipe-meat; and it struggled and heaved like a mountain might buck off a horsefly but she had a lance now, a long lance like a needle six men tall and on that lance was the [s]scarf[/s] the Banner of the Monarch and she stuck him with it; and no wind fluttered that old rag but grey waves rolled over it as its kaleidoscopic colours dimmed and brightened, and the [s]Iqelins[/s] the demons were still calmed because it wasn’t [i]hatred[/i] oh no this was something much better and crueller and delicious and it hurt so much more; and-

[colour=gainsboro]“La da daa- di daa-”[/colour]

and there [s]was[/s] [s]wasn’t[/s] was a pattern in those tiny pinpricks of violence she gouged in it and only she could see it and it was [s]plague spots[/s] was not a pretty one at all; and as she stabbed at it its mouthparts sprouted and grew and curved and twisted in and out of its [s]four dark pearl eyes[/s] its eyeless face like a babirusa; and its head was immobilised and its brain was pierced and it [s]snapped its neck back[/s] reared itself up [s]with a sickening crack[/s] on too many legs and its belly gaped open because there was a whole new mouth there; except it wasn’t a mouth it was just a [s]hell[/s] a hole and the hole was a [s]drooling orifice[/s] hag-eel’s breathing hole and it stretched and strained like a dark toothless tube with its six [s]tongues[/s] six stubby tentacles; and-

[colour=gainsboro]“DA DA DAA-”[/colour]

and every single [s]person[/s] demon was like this now and they were everywhere and a hundred Ea Nebels [s]loved them[/s] stabbed them but only one had the [s]ovipositor[/s] had the Banner; and they shoved their gaping [s]wounds[/s] holes onto the grit and clay [s]and ants[/s] and bone and gobbled it up anyway, contracting, stretching, gulping, [s]kissing,[/s] shuddering; and everything Ea Nebel could see was [s]doubled[/s] quadrupled and blurry and in the after-images she could see them crawling up the beam of light like [s]newborn babes[/s] mutilated ticks and sucking [s]her[/s] the necropolis out of it like [s]milk[/s] pus and [s]she screamed[/s] that was good; and the more they slurped and crumbled the less she could see of anything, anything at all…

And then there was nothing, no demons, no heat, no drone, no portal; and Ea Nebel floated there in the silver mist all alone, her face a sea of tears, wheezing laughter to herself and no one else.

[hr]

[color=778899]“It is the virtue of [i]duty[/i] to know one’s own purpose and whereby it may be accomplished. It is to serve one’s end with abnegation, without forsaking its most grievous incumbencies for one’s own indulgent fulfilment when those should prove discordant. Thereby, in service of a higher Law one is made master over oneself and all things.”[/color]

The voice hesitated, reflecting on something it had until that point not prepared for.

[color=778899]“And it is to champion that Law and its universal ordainment in the face of unclean forces that would overturn it. It is to find one’s way among their deceptions and never stray from the destined path. This is a virtue of the divine.”[/color]

[hr]

The space, if indeed it was a space, where the arbiters found themselves was cool and dark, the only source of definite sensation being the smooth glassy floor underfoot. After the sights of the ancient battlefield, over which they had been afforded eyes and ears that were everywhere and nowhere at once, free to pry at the minutest grain of dust or observe the breadth of ruination from a far vantage, the impenetrable shadow and silence did not seem altogether unpleasant.

Iqelis was not with them, not visibly. His presence could be felt [i]around[/i] them, however. The darkness writhed, breathed, coiled indistinctly; he was inside it, and he was it. Its stirrings were his thoughts, and as the focus of his unseen eye was drawn to the course of the ordeal, a perceptive spirit could have read their course easily enough. There had at first been expectation, impatient yet confident; a pang of bitterness at the demigoddess’ rebuke, and a flash of anger which even here curled into an edge of rancorous mockery oddly laced with concern - [i]Is this how you repay me? On with it! or you [b]will[/b] break, are breaking![/i] - that steadily turned to bemusement as he strained to catch something he thought he had seen. It grew to bafflement as distortion blossomed, for it was plain that it was not something he had woven into the fabric of this hell-crucible. Even now, after the hurriedly improvised conclusion to his homily, he seemed to have forgotten the two judges, and fluid ether flowed and shifted places as he weighed memory against design, puzzling over whether the one had contaminated the other. Recollections of a be-nightmared battle against impossible enemies under a sunless black sky danced on the skein of his mind, and measured themselves against the events that he laboured to force into the mould of what had been his intention.

The Goddess of Honor had shut her eyes closed, and sighed once with sorrow before she spoke. [b]“I have now found the profuse irony here to be more than enough. Despite what others may claim, failure in this test is something we have all experienced as the Divine. There will be times when we are defeated, but then we will rise again. She has passed this trial through such failure, so let us move onto the next.”[/b] Homura proclaimed, as her scarlet eyes slowly opened, and afterwards shifted her attention to the second judge.

Ruina let out another hum as Homura spoke. She did have a point in that suffering failures without being crippled was a quality needed of a divine, but something tickled at her mind a bit. What, exactly, had been the goal of the test? To bury the bodies? To be rid of the light? This test seemed to be lacking in an overall goal, unlike the prior tests which had fairly clearly defined ones. Thus Ruina would raise an issue. [color=#a6cb99]”Something I feel like I must observe is that this test possessed of it no purpose that is clear to me. What was the goal of Ea Nebel in this area? To bury the bodies? To rid herself of the beam of light? It feels to me that this was a test that had no solution, thus making failing the only solution possible. Lest an explanation comes, I would think of this trial as unworthy.”[/color]

Around them, Iqelis' mind bristled with impatience as it was torn away from its pondering, but the voice that sounded from the darkness was even.

[color=778899]“The light and the bodies are one and the same,”[/color] it crackled, now loud and pervasive, [color=778899]“They are the path of adversity, which duty must tread and overcome. Had she fulfilled her calling in spite of their asperity and of the lure of complacency, there would have been no doubts as to her success.”[/color]

Homura slightly shrugged. “It is what it is. These trials should not be so black and white, and an unworthy trial is still a trial nonetheless. Would you say the actions of Ea Nebel have given you cause to annihilate her?” The red goddess asked, offering Ruina a shadow of a smile.

Ruina blinked as the explanation was given from Iqelis before she nodded. As Homura gave her own thoughts, Ruina would blink once more as she thought about the question presented. Looking to Homura, Ruina gave her answer bluntly. [color=#a6cb99]”No. Not yet. When the trials are finished I will have made up my mind on matters.”[/color]

Ruina thought it best to not include the fact that she was not here to judge Ea Nebel, but to instead judge her father, Iqelis. With things explained, Ruina folded her arms before speaking again. [color=#a6cb99]”I am satisfied by the explanations given, and you have my thanks for them. Let us continue to the next trial.”[/color]

And so they did.

[hr]

[hider=One must imagine Ea Nebel happy]

When Ea Nebel steps into the third trial, she's "subtly" shunted into an ideabstracted dreamworld, where she's confronted with a pleasant little graveyard and a horrible wasteland full of unburied corpses. She catches on quickly enough to what she must do*, but the illusion's challenges and temptations are just as quick in taking a toll on her mood.

*Bury everything. She gets as far as counting them. There are lots.

As she rails against this banal allegory, a very suspicious mushroom somehow pops up to offer her a favour*, but this only incenses her more. She breaks down**, and tears the vision down with her in a whirl of chaos that unfolds inside someone's head (but whose?) before collapsing into a haze.

*trying to turn her off from the temptation of cozyness by making it look like the cozy place is full of demon bugs.
**when she starts hallucinating demon bugs of her very own.

Iqelis is baffled at his totally immersive simulation glitching out like this and can't make out why it happened. He tries to pass it off as a success anyway. Homura doesn't buy it, but thinks that failing the word of the trial is fitting to pass it in spirit. Ruina remains noncommittal, but declares herself satisfied for the moment.

[/hider][hider=Vigour]

Iqelis starts with 6 vigour.
-He spends 1 on crafting an ideabstracted vision that is wholly lifelike and supremely subtle in beguiling the senses.
He ends with 5 vigour.


Nebby's point count
Start 11
-1 building her house by the sea last time.
--1 demigod penalty.
-2 new extraordinary species, identity unclear.
--2 demigod penalty.
---COULD IT BE DEMON BUGS????
-2 new region, small, in an unspecified location (demi-aspect)
--We'll see this when all the trials are done.
End 3

[/hider]