The Third Trial

	I stood shivering knee-deep in the icy water, resisting the mighty current of the underground river while my tiny flickering candle strove with the absolute darkness surrounding me. Unlike the Hydra cave there were no torches down here, and unlike the grand Arena there were neither starstones or rocklight. There was only void, save in the small area lit by the pathetic candle. In it's dying, faltering light demons and strange shadows danced through the eternal night.. and not all of them were illusions cast by my wandering, wondering mind, Strange things, often evil and terrible things, linger in the deeps and eternal darkness and I realized all too late that this could be the hardest trial yet. I do not fear the dark; I do have concern over some of it's denizens, however, and with good cause. If you only knew... but without experiencing it there is no true way to understand. The Vampires had moreover proved over and over again over these last few days that the tests will be lethal if failed or underestimated, and failure is unfortunately easy. With a groan midway between growl and self pitying howl I surged forward, searching for a way to dam the tide and damn the tide.

"No human tools. No hammers, no wood, no bricks, no cement, no glass, no hydropressure restraining metals, and NO EXPLOSIVES. Nothing but what you find, your candle, and your blade. Come back when the river is stopped or do not come back", they had commanded. So I was stuck with a single candle alone in the middle of the wash, watching the ravenous shadows draw ever closer as the wick slowly burned down, with no idea what to do or how to do it. Drenched and sneezing I slowly forced my way through the middle, slipping twice and washing downstream before regaining my footing and catching onto the all too loose boulders. I was a mile past my original entry point by now (which I found out later). I would die in this cold if it kept uo, I reflected, and so I crawled/ waded my way to the closest rock encrusted shoreline. 

The candle at last died as I stripped off the waterlogged robes and boots, leaving me completely naked in the absolute and total shadow, shivering from a little more than simply cold. The visual effect in it's expected but all too sudden entry was like losing my eye again, I was totally and utterly blind, and against my better judgement I lashed out in instinctual rage and horror... only to impale my foot on a sharp stalagmite. Another man would have screamed in pain, but "L" remained murderously silent and ripped it out, scattering large droplets of blood across the rocks and in the water. The bony blind fish splashed in a futile search for the new prey as I slowly shredded what I estimatated to be an adequate section off my soggy robe to use as a tourniquet. The cloth did not rip easily and I lost a fair bit of blood before my "bandage" was finally ready. Great, thought an obnoxious, suicidal part of my brain, now not only would I die of hypothermia and creatures I couldn't see eating me, but now I had the pleasure of bleeding to death all over these cursed razor rocks as an added bonus.

The suicidal part was swiftly crushed by "L" again as I sensed serious trouble. The danger signals were far stronger without the distranction of sight, and...

And the darkness stirred like the fish, reeling, writhing, and stirring like the fish, scenting blood. Scenting food. I lashed out with my hearing and feelings alone, and I killed again and again and again as the creatures I could not see relentlessy advanced. By the time the third head hit the ground I had an idea, a rather evil idea, but one that may well have been the only way to accomplish the trial and leave the ground more free for footwork. Ripping the stalagmites from the low ceiling to my left I stabbed them into the bodies as anchors and tossed the weighted corpses into the river. Too heavy to be swept away because of the heavy stone they began to pile up. It was not happy dancing time. I couldn't see where I was stacking or where to reach, and the needle points left my hands and forearms bloody and raw, but eventually I heard the roar of the river begin to slow to a gurgle around the mounting wall. And still they came, goblins and orcs and things I could only guess at, stabbing, hacking, biting, screaming, what seemed like an endless horde as plentiful as the drops of water in the river. Finally I saw a torch appearing in the distance and squinted to let my eyes adjust more gradually to the light. It was a tactic of theirs so they could finally see where to hit their all too elusive target, but it backfired, for I could finally see them too. The probing stabs became killing arcs, and more and more fell. An axe bit into my right shoulder and two arrows grazed my side- but all twelve of the torchbearing orcs died, and I claimed the light for my own. Countless minor skirmishes and hundreds of stalagtites and stalagmites ripped clean by cave collapse, avalanche, hand, and blades later I finished. The gurgle became a trickle, the trickle, a drip. 

My entire robe was shredded now to cover the myriad scratches and wounds, and I was partially delerious (in addition to suffering acute hypothermia) but impossibly, incredibly, I made it back to the Vampire Halls. My wandering bare feet looked like the hamburger patties you buy in grocery stores, except with blood oozing through them and with white bone shining visibly under the pink. They sent three Vampires to check while confining me to my quarters and forcing three doctors on me, in addition to seven healing mages. It took two months to heal completely, and I almost died five times during the intensive physical and magical treatment, but finally I made it back to my feet. After that extenisve exercise routines brought me back to my peak, and I finally had time to listen the rumors that passed every time I entered a room. No fewer than six hundred and fourty seven bodies on the shores alone from my single blade, a feat worthy of Biblical proportions, with even more corpses submerged irretrievably in the murky, gore stained pond. In the darkness their arrows could not fly true, but I was rather amazed to be alive myself. Among the Vampires the rumors of my being Other grew, as did a small cult believing me to be the heir to the God of War.

Pfft. Nonsense. I'm just that good. While it is said that the mark of a true hero is humility, mark me well- I am no hero. This task was appointed to me not by destiny but by doom, and I shall suffer my path for as long as I shall live, for the betterment of the Races as a whole. And when I fall, another will step into my place, and another after them, until the day that either all the Masques are dead or the day when we are no longer needed. We are the slaves that hold the reigns of ultimate power only to be whipped by them and strangled. Fear lurks within our minds as we wonder every day in what horrible way we'll die, and fear is what makes our foes lay down their weapons at our approach. Only our arrogance and our will to survive keep that fear strong; what man or beast fears a timid quitter? But I can speak honestly only of myself and the dead. My wounds tire me, and I need to sleep.

So ended the Third Trial, and may my lucky stars bless me and keep me as well off as I am now...