Bacon Macleod
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B3 Chapter 385: Tales, pt. 4
🕑 Added 2025-08-24 21:30:02 +0000 UTCKenva stumbled through the portal, and suddenly she was somewhere else.
She got her bearings quickly. Someone like her, with her upbringing and the life her people lived — moving on the road and seeing new sights every day — was long used to taking in what was around her in an instant.
She was not, however, used to finding herself in an empty void.
A pale blue-grey nothingness stretched out around her, with an endless road floating beneath her feet. It shot into the distance, slowly vanishing to a point. Frowning, she looked around and confirmed that it stretched both ways.
There was nothing else. No details. No danger that she could see.
Interesting.
She knew these trials were supposed to test their aspects, but she didn’t see how this could fit any of hers — at least the ones she’d already gathered. Especially not Corporus.
The insight it had brought her was one she had known well; had been aware of since she was young. Though, one she perhaps had never fully internalized until that moment of ignition, after they had slain the Guardian defending the entrance.
She was a free spirit, but in her experience — seeking freedom, excitement, and new experiences as she did — you needed to be flexible. To bend, so you didn’t break. It was an ethos she lived by. Not just in how she fought, but in the way she approached conflict and hardship in general.
It made her aspect doubly suitable — both in its representation of her being, and in the physical agility it granted her.
That mindset helped her now, as she processed the feeling of her new trait. Stormsoul.
It was fascinating, in a way. The stats were one thing — plus one to both Constitution and Dexterity was nothing to sniff at — but more notable was the new way in which she could feel the stillness of the air against her skin. She adjusted quickly, of course. But fully integrating this new sense? She could tell it would take a while.
Already, it was a heady thing to process. Almost as if she had swaddled herself in an itchy blanket — painfully aware of every scrap of her skin that touched it.
Shaking the thoughts off, Kenva gave herself a once-over, inventorying what she had available.
A spike of worry shot up her spine as she realized that her ring was missing, but she pushed past it. Already this trial was different from what she expected. There was no onslaught of challenging enemies.
It was something deeper. Something more personal. She assumed that whatever it was, her storage ring would have gotten in the way of it.
She could do without her bow and weapons. She’d be fine.
Slightly more concerning were the iron chains she found wrapped around her mana pool when she looked inwards. That could be problematic — it’d stop her from using almost all her skills, most of them having at least a token mana cost to their use.
But no matter.
She would make do with what she had. She had her health, her stamina, and the strength of her body. What she needed now was to ready herself mentally for what would no doubt come. She very much doubted this challenge was limited simply to an endless open road.
Taking a seat, she closed her eyes and breathed. Listening to the world around her. Feeling the air on her skin. She approached the new sensation with open hands — allowing it to wash through her and past her, as she gradually grew more comfortable with pushing it to the side.
She did not get long, for it was only a minute later that the great system's words spilled across her eyes.
*Ding! You have challenged the Trial of Contortion!*
*Immerse yourself in Corporus, and prove your ability through flexibility and agility.*
*Surpass the obstacles without making contact! Be warned, those of lacking ability have no place on the Path — to forfeit is to abandon this Crucible!*
Leaping to her feet, she poured over the notification.
She hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t that. What on earth could it mean by obstacles? There was nothing here — just an empty road in a void.
Though, if she was supposed to push her Corporus, a trial of flexibility and control made sense.
Hopefully it would be fun. She grinned, moving through the series of stretches her mother had taught her as a girl. While she was long past the point they would actually help, it did focus her mind.
No doubt it wouldn’t be easy, but she’d grown up with games of physical ability. Who could scale the cliff the fastest? Who could climb highest in the tree? Who could dance across the river rocks — submerged in a whitewater spray where a single misstep would see bones broken and skin split?
She’d been undefeated there, and it would be the same here. She didn’t need a reason to push herself. Her body, her control, her fluidity, her life: it demanded precision. How else would she go where no one else had?
A quarter-league down the road, a wall of shimmering orange snapped into being. Colossal, it stretched into infinity — larger than anything she had seen before. Even the distant oceans on her rare trips to the eastern coast hadn’t been so imposing.
Yet there was a hole. Four longstrides wide, and four tall, it hovered a handspan above the road.
The wall drew closer — though at a snail's pace.
She looked at it in disbelief. Her trial couldn’t possibly be jumping through the hole — but what else could be described as an obstacle in this empty space?
A thin bolt of dread shot up her spine. If her first obstacle was this easy, what would happen if she touched the wall? That much energy, stretched over so much…it must have been potent.
She banished the thought from her mind. No matter, she simply wouldn’t fail.
Kenva jogged forward, toward the scintillating energy and the hole within it. Reaching the opening, she stepped through as easily as she had any of the other dozens of steps before it.
Behind her, the wall flashed and crackled as it dissolved into vanishing motes of energy.
To her front, another appeared. Almost identical, though this time there was a slot instead of a hole — a full long stride wide and five tall.
She wouldn’t even have to step through — she could simply stand there.
So she did. On and on they came, growing more difficult, but so slowly it left her nervous. By her ancestors, how was this supposed to test her Corporus?
Yet as if the challenge had heard her, the pace picked up. The gaps she was to fit through morphed, gradually becoming both smaller and more complex as the fields of energy rushed toward her faster and faster. Eventually she only had a bare few breaths to rest, reset, and attempt the next.
She grew worried.
A squirming dread settled into her stomach. It raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
She was struggling now. Forced to contort herself into an awkward curve as she threw herself a long stride and a half into the air, sliding through a C-shaped gap. The tip of her nose just barely missed the field of energy by a hairsbreadth
She touched the ground, gasping.
What would happen when she failed? When she touched the energy? Would it burn her? Cut her? Would it be worse? A punishment — or an instant failure?
Three more repetitions. She succeeded, yet her form was worsening. She just had too little time.
Then it came.
A horizontal slot set in the wall of energy, a full two longstrides over the top of her head. It was narrow, just barely thicker than her body. Hells, she was damn sure she’d have to turn her head sideways just to get through.
Gritting her teeth, Kenva sprinted forward. At the last possible moment she drove her foot into the ground, launching herself upwards, and licked her legs back to slide into a dive.
Time slowed as she flattened herself. But...her trajectory was off; her arc just a little too low.
Her shoulder breached the field of energy.
A loud shriek cut through the void. So piercing that Kenva couldn’t help but scream herself. She clasped her ears, feeling blood trickle down — a sticky warmth that coated her fingers as everything went dead silent.
Sound returned a moment later as her health restored her eardrums. It was barely an expenditure, as small as the injury was.
Kenva scrambled to her feet, ready for anything; for whatever punishment the trial deemed appropriate for her failure.
She found nothing.
Just an infinite stretch of empty white road, stained by a few drops of her own blood.
She looked around in confusion — and another wall of energy appeared.
A hole was cut through it — twice as tall as she was, set barely ankle-height above the ground.
Kenva laughed long and loud as she watched it approach at a snail’s pace.
She couldn’t believe it. That was her punishment? A loud noise?
Well, she supposed she didn’t need one to push her onwards — she’d always liked challenging herself. She cracked her neck.
That slot…she could get through it, she was sure of it.
This place would find she would bend, but she wouldn’t break.
….
"You’ve got to be fucking joking. That’s bullshit and you know it," Porkchop said, staring at the ranger in mock disgust as she sipped her tea and smiled smugly.
"Looks to me like it’s definitive proof that you're all sick in the head," Kenva replied, grinning.
"And how do you figure that?" Ianmus arched an eyebrow. "Just because you got an easy one?"
"Well, clearly it shows that you don't need some horrendous form of torture to feel your aspects a little deeper. Just something that'll push you. It’s not my fault you guys are so twisted you need nails jammed under your fingers just to feel something."
Kaius looked at her in disbelief — though he did chuckle a little at the friendly banter.
"You’re serious though? That was actually your trial? That was enough for you to embody Corporus?"
He genuinely couldn’t believe it. Where was the blood? Where was the pain? The sacrifice? Hells, even Ianmus, a mage in the back line, had to go through an ordeal.
"Hey, it wasn’t easy. By the time I actually embodied my Aspect, I was having to dislocate half my joints just to slip through those damn holes."
"Still..." Ianmus said, looking at her with more than a little jealousy.
"What about your Mentis, then? Isn’t it just about multitasking and channeling? Was that really another painful exercise for you? You love that."
"Well, yes," he admitted. "But it wasn’t quite as game-like as yours. It was still bloody hard."
“I’d like to see you try to tie yourself into a knot — mid-air, mind you — to fit through a hole less than two strides wide!”
Ianmus rolled his eyes and grinned.
“Well, true — I doubt I could do that. Regardless, my Mentis trial was quite the experience.
Comments
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Edit suggestion: licked her legs back -> kicked her legs back
Ali
I love what Kenva adds to the group dynamic, I’d also love to see how she reacts when everyone in the outside world brands her just as “sick in the head” as the rest of her party.
moon
Hey man, big fan of the story but I think it suffers from pacing issues. This whole crucible arc, whilst having some key moments in terms of fleshing out the wider world of the series and hinting at future power-ups, has frankly been largely boring. We don’t need 8 chapters of the characters sitting in a circle and just talking. We don’t need a dozen or more chapters of a singular trial portion, especially with the release schedule of the series, weeks and weeks go by IRL and the story goes seemingly nowhere. Personally I think i’ll unsubscribe to the patreon for now, wait a few months to see if the chapter titles hint at the story going forward and then buy again, but at the current pace i don’t see the point in paying the monthly subscrition in terms of what we actually see in the story progression. I truly do not mean to be mean spirited in writing this out I just really feel it needs to said ”out loud”. With that being said I love the general premise of this series and the unique power system of the pillars, and the class abilities of the characters, especially Kaius and his whole runeblade thing.
