The Ruby Magician

John absorbed another blow on his shield, then paused before his counterattack. His opponent, another sword and shield Climber, was strong but not very skilled. To him, it felt like she came to Alestead unprepared but likely found success with a good mentor and a good group. Unfortunately for her, he had been preparing to become a Climber long before he ever stepped foot into the famed tower city.

Feigning a wide slash, John quickly jabbed his wooden sword into her ribs and scored his third and final point. Sonya yelled the hit and the crowd clapped for his success. Both Climbers bowed to each other, returned their equipment, and left the stage.

Overall, it was straightforward and simple. It may have even been a little boring.

“You know, maybe this won’t be as hard as we thought,” Tasha said, standing by the entrance to the training hall along with the rest of their group. “That match looked far too easy.”

“Or we’re just that good,” John replied. “There are plenty of great Climbers here. This is just the first trial!”

“He’s right,” Cedric said. “But we need to figure out our plan for the week. We need to balance climbing and being here in the training hall for the trials.”

Wyn looked over at Cedric. He and Marcy immediately told the three rookies about their conversation with Faye, and the others couldn’t have been more excited. The thought of potentially joining the Twilight Blades nearly made John’s head spin, and Wyn was happy his friend had a good chance of getting his arm back. Tasha was happy for everyone, and as supportive as always. Still, it was nice to see that Cedric was now serious about the trials when before he was ambivalent at best.

If anything, it made Wyn more interested in joining the guild, too.

“My trial starts in less than an hour, now,” Marcy said. “I’m up first, at least. Then the mage trials start two hours after that.”

Marcy appeared more invested as well. Wyn always knew she was a good, loyal friend, and he felt better knowing she was doing this for John and Cedric. Though the way she fidgeted when Faye was mentioned made Wyn wonder if there was another reason for her interest.

“If we aren’t too tired after, maybe we can climb once before the day’s end?” Tasha asked. “It’ll make for a long day, but we can do it!”

Wyn nodded. “That’s good. We can probably get one more climb in before the mage trials if we go into Alistair the moment Marcy is done. We could likely clear one of the first tier floors before the mage trials start with a two hour window.”

“Either the first or fourth floors,” John said. “The first is easy enough to rush through, and we can power our way through the fourth floor in that time. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

“I vote fourth,” Marcy said. “Be liberal with our mana and we can go even faster. Pop some potions at the end of the floor to fill your mana pools, then go to the trials. Easy!”

Tasha’s curls bobbed as she nodded several times. “That’s good! I also vote the fourth floor. We can do it! And our reward will be better than climbing the first floor!”

John and Cedric both agreed as well, and the group concluded that if they had enough time at the end of the day, they’d go back to the sixth floor for their last climb. For now, though, they waited for Marcy’s trial to begin.

The group took seats at the very edge of the stands so they could leave the training hall immediately when Marcy was finished, but still in a position so they could watch. Though Wyn had no idea why they even needed to. She was easily going to qualify, especially after Sonya announced the rules.

Trying to showcase trials for all roles of Climbers wasn’t easy, but for ranged matches they had a classic setup of an archery course. There were stationary dummies with large, painted targets on their torso lined up at ten, twenty, and thirty yards from a starting line. The Climbers had to hit the closest dummy before advancing to the next one, though only had five total arrows available to use. Their score was tallied with how close they hit the center target on each dummy, how many arrows it took to hit all three or as many as possible, and how fast they could finish. There weren’t as many Climbers for the ranged trials, but they sectioned off four groups of five participants. According to Sonya, each group would move relatively quickly as they were timed.

Five of the Climbers lined up, testing the training bows they grabbed and positioning themselves in certain spots on the starting line. Marcy still stood at the weapons rack, where she was testing arrows by slightly bending them, twirling them in her palms, looking down the shaft, and gently inspecting the fletching. One bow she grabbed pulled easily to her cheek, and she shook her head in disagreement before placing it back on the rack. Another she pulled back and and nodded in satisfaction, then casually walked over with the others.

Her left hand held both her chosen bow and three arrows. She didn’t even bother grabbing more.

Unfortunately she was the last one to line up, and had a poor position on the very end. No dummy was directly in front of her like the others.

Wyn laughed to himself. None of the other archers took any kind of care to select the perfect equipment for themselves. He knew how important it was to have the correct features of a bow and arrows match up to the archer, and Marcy clearly outclassed the rest.

The moment Sonya raised her hand, every one of the five Climbers drew an arrow to their cheek. “Begin!”

Echoes of the twangs of bowstrings flooded the hall, followed by thuds of arrows hitting wood. Immediately after was a pause, except for one archer. Four of the archers took extra time nocking a new arrow, positioning their body, and aiming at the dummies. One Climber fired off one arrow after another with little more than a second of pause between each.

After a single breath, Wyn realized Marcy was already done. It had taken her three arrows to complete the first round. Each arrow hit square in the middle of each dummy, and none of the other Climbers had even fired their second arrow before she was done.

Walking back over to the weapon rack, Marcy placed her bow back and walked away. The other Climbers stood there, stunned.

Wyn and their group moved to exit the training hall, no one saying a word.

*****

Wyn, Tasha, and Cedric stood shoulder to shoulder. They had just watched the first tier Climbers in the first magic trials, and they were each thinking how best to approach their own trials. Tasha figured more of her Diamond Magician spells would be helpful rather than her Callings, and immediately knew she was at a disadvantage from the other Diamond Wizards. She could still hold her own, but she wouldn’t stand out as much as the others. At least not in the context of overcoming the very obvious setup for the standard Mage progression. Cedric thought the opposite, knowing that he was in a great position as his spells hit hard and ranged from basic lightning spells to powerful ones that could obliterate one of the training dummies if they weren’t enhanced or protected well enough by his opponent.

Wyn unfortunately felt even worse than Tasha. His spells and mana capacity weren’t only limited, but his focus was split between both offensive and defensive spells. He could theoretically participate in the trials on either side, supporting or attacking the dummies, but he knew he would fare better on the defensive end. He had only one attacking spell but three support spells. Feeble and Flash weren’t helpful in this specific trial, and he suddenly wished he was able to keep Arcane Aura. The protective spell would be helpful on the dummy, and a good complement to his three support spells. Still, having Shield, Regen, and Cure would go a long way for the trial.

Still, Wyn wasn’t as focused on his magic as any of the other Climbers present for these trials. He didn’t have their larger mana pools, their impressive spell lists, or their experience practicing and using spells as their only means of climbing. He had abilities that covered multiple roles, though when standing beside each of them, he looked worse than all of them for this specific event.

His only hope was that the judges would be impressed he even participated in multiple trials at all. Maybe seeing that by trying to the best of his ability, and having multiple abilities at that, they would give him some consolation points.

Or, they’d just write him off as being too broad and ultimately useless. It was likely going to be one or the other.

But, part of Wyn’s supportive role as a Climber was being backup to Tasha, so he mentally prepared himself to try and outsmart his opponent rather than win by pure magic ability. That would be the only way for him to advance past the first round.

Watching the first tier Climbers gave Wyn an overall sense of how the trial would go, as well as some ideas. For starters, the trial was simple in design but magically complicated in execution. A Diamond Mage stood behind three dummies, and a single attacking Climber stood about twenty yards away for the match. The trial would begin, and most of the Diamond Magicians would either cast Arcane Aura on the dummies one after the other, or would wait and try and intercept the attacking spells with Shell. If any damage got past them or if the Climber mistimed the spell, they would then cast Cure on the affected dummy to keep it healed. From what Sonya explained, the dummies and arena were enchanted to report how much damage was given and how much was prevented, like a magical set of scales.

Each match played out like a game, and Wyn took mental notes. He was at a disadvantage, but had a few strategies to help his deficits.

One was his spell choice. Most of the Climbers he watched used Arcane Aura, Cure, and Shell. Shell was a spell almost exactly like Shield, except its focus was on magical attacks. It still formed a translucent, partially domed barrier, but its color was different than Shield, like more of a light-brown sand rather than Shield’s dull blue. From what Wyn remembered, it wasn’t as common of a spell choice because there weren’t near as many monsters in the first tier who used magic, and the spell itself cost a bit more to use than Shield making it less mana efficient. But, for this specific trial, it was a far better choice.

Most Magicians wouldn’t have to choose between either spell because they had the ability to just select both with so many spell options. However, Wyn had an advantage here - with his Ruby Strategist upgrade, Shield was able to protect from both physical and magical attacks. Part of the class feature was that if a support spell protected against one damage type, it now protected against both.

Wyn was going to be able to catch some people off guard by blocking spells using Shield, and he was going to enjoy their reactions. If anything, the judges seeing that his one spell could protect from both physical and magical attacks should help him look like a better potential guild member.

Another strategy he formed was how to properly manage his resources. Some of the Climbers were terrible with conserving their mana, wasting it by casting Arcane Aura on all three of the dummies when on average over half of the spell still remained at the end of each match. Diamond Wizards could coat all three dummies at once with their upgraded features based on what Tasha said about the upgraded class, but it was still a large mana drain. One that was unnecessary. Wyn saw that properly timed casts of Shell fared pretty well against most of the attacks except for the more powerful ones, and those could be overcome with a healing spell. So, his plan was to time casts of Shield against the enemy’s spells and recover whatever damage he couldn’t block. He had both Regen and Cure in his spell list, and could decide based on the situation which would be better. Regen he learned cost slightly less than Cure and healed slightly more, though it’s effect was delayed over several minutes rather than instant. That was an advantage, though - if he let the dummy get damaged, he could use a single cast of Regen at the right time to allow the dummy to heal better than wasting his finite mana on Cure.

It was a gamble, but so was being a Climber. He just hoped he could put on a good show, at the very least. He had no expectation of winning these trials. Only to prove he was not only competent, but that his class could be beneficial, as well.

As the trials ended for the first tier Climbers, the three stood alongside dozens of other Climbers. Sonya stepped up and began to announce the next set of trials, and due to the large number of Climbers participating for the second tier, two matches were going on at one time.

The first name to be called was, of course, Cedric.

The Lightning Wizard casually strolled up to the arena to murmurs throughout the training hall. He wore only a basic set of Mage’s robes and carried a simple scepter as none of the Climbers at this point were able to use their own gear in order to make the trials as even as possible. Wyn was thankful no one was laughing, but he assumed it was because they understood the dangers of climbing. Seeing a Climber without an arm was a sobering realization, after all. Though most Climbers around likely thought Cedric wasn’t as useful with only one arm.

Wyn couldn’t suppress a smile. He couldn’t wait to see how wrong they were.

Cedric’s opponent was a Divine Wizard, and he reeked of wealth. The man’s hair was styled, his clothes gaudy with gold trim and high quality materials, and his attitude was even more ostentatious. When Wyn thought of a noble coming to Alestead to climb the tower, this man was the prime example.

Three dummies stood still just a few feet in the front of the man, and Cedric stood another twenty yards away. The man peeked out from the sides of the dummies, eyeing Cedric as though he was a peasant who didn’t deserve his time or attention. He laughed to himself and looked off into the crowd, waving at someone.

Cedric was locked in on the man and the three dummies, his gaze calculating. Wyn had a chill run through him. Cedric wasn’t just about to win, he was about to prove a point. This match was not about to go this noble’s way.

As soon as Sonya said begin, Cedric launched his first attack. It was one of his more basic spells, but a strong one that Wyn recognized - his Chain Lightning spell, that overtook monsters before lashing out to more nearby in a harrowing display of force and damage. The noble obviously wasn’t used to lightning spells because he hesitated after the spell hit the first dummy, unsure of what was happening. Wyn guessed that the man either climbed with another element in his team or one that didn’t have a damaging Mage at all. That, or the man really just coasted to this point on the back of his money.

Regardless, the spell latched onto all three of the dummies before the Diamond Wizard began to heal them. Crackling lights of sparking energy zipped between all of the wooden dummies in an instant. He cast a Cure that affected all three, but right as the spell took effect on the third dummy Cedric activated another spell. This time, a strong line of lightning blasted into the first dummy with a loud crack. The noise pulled everyone’s attention in the room, Wyn’s included.

The first dummy was charred from the hit and had its left arm blown to bits. Wyn had no idea how that factored into the scoring, and obviously no one else did either since the Diamond Wizard stood behind it with wide eyes cowering behind a hastily made Shell. The barrier didn’t even cover the dummies, of course, and only covered himself.

Cedric pointed to the dummy with the scepter and loudly asked Sonya, “Is that enough for a win?”

The woman just looked to the panel of judges behind her who all started hastily whispering to each other. Obviously they weren’t expecting someone to be able to damage one of the dummies to that extent.

Before answering, Cedric cast another of his spells at the defenseless dummies that washed over both of them. The nobleman was doing a poor job of protecting and healing the wooden statues as he haphazardly healed them over and over to where they glowed nearly a blinding white light. It was far more healing than any of the first tier Climbers provided, and showed that the man was over correcting more than anything.

Still, it didn’t matter how much he healed the dummies in the end as the match was set. Cedric showed that he had plenty of power as a Wizard and wasn’t afraid to use it, and the Diamond Wizard showed that his judgment was poor and reaction equally bad. When Sonya returned and counted Cedric the victor without even tallying the final results on the dummies, apparently the judges came to a similar conclusion.

The man strode over to Sonya and immediately started complaining while Cedric simply walked away. He looked confident and collected, and Wyn was proud. His sheer power was not something to be ignored, and he showed that to both the other Climbers and the judges. Him lacking an arm wasn’t even a factor.

As the other match finished, Wyn looked over to Tasha who just nodded to him. The next round of trials were up, and it was Tasha’s turn.