[center][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/964675339429240844/964675614495883274/0c5bdd38d421f545dab3bae8320ae54a.jpg[/img]
[h1]Chapter Ten: [color=000000]D[/color]ark [color=000000]W[/color]ings, [color=000000]D[/color]ark [color=000000]W[/color]ords[/h1][h3]Part One: Into the Tower[/h3][/center][hr][hr]The students blinked. They had been standing in a drafty stone stairwell between floors in the Forked Tower, caught between exultation and trepidation as they had proposed their solution to the problem. Now, they were not. Surrounding them was an expansive study, multiple stories high and replete with towering bookshelves, a strategy table, and numerous desks and hutches packed full of magical and scientific equipment: clearly the personal domain of an eminent Arch Zeno. At the far end, daylight streamed in through a set of towering stained glass windows. They were set high enough against the wall that the students could not simply look through them.

It was all so grand and unexpected that it took many of the new arrivals a moment to notice that there were more here than simply their original group of five. As they looked around, they noticed other familiar and semi-familiar faces from campus. Indeed, there appeared to be twenty-five in all. What they could not know, of course, was that there had originally been one-hundred others who had failed the test at some stage or another. Those found themselves back in bed with no memory or knowledge of what had transpired remaining in their minds.

For the twenty five who had passed the three tests, however, a new challenge awaited. Almost lost amid the sudden turmoil was the elderly, white-bearded figure at the far end of the room, hunched over a desk. It twisted in its high-backed chair, cold grey-blue eyes peering out from beneath wizened wrinkles and bushy brows. Somewhat querulous with age, the figure stood, a great sea-blue robe unfurling as it did so. [color=7ea7d8]"Welcome to the Society of the Forked Tower,"[/color] said a deep, gravelly voice, resonant despite a tone steeped in age. [color=7ea7d8]"You were smart enough and the others were not."[/color] It was the paradigm himself: [url=https://i.pinimg.com/564x/60/a0/a5/60a0a57dbdb80c2456bb0b01b4edb884.jpg]Hugo Hunghorasz[/url] - by the reckoning of some, the greatest mage to have ever lived.
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