Tala sat in a sturdy—yet still comfortable—chair across from Rane.

The room was away from anywhere public, though there were some windows that looked out over Alefast from their high vantage.

They had both given their new inscriptions two full months in order to have time to set properly and become properly intermeshed with their natural magics.

Even so, they were both a bit nervous as it was their first time, but they were excited too.

-You could still lay down. From what I can find most people prefer it that way.-

Tala sent Alat a negative feeling in response to that. No. I think sitting up will be better. I think I’ll feel less vulnerable like this.

She’d even made sure that she was facing the door, for all the good that would do.

Her focus would be entirely subverted soon enough. So she doubted that the direction she faced or the position she was in would matter in the least.

-I’ll be monitoring our threefold sight’s volume of perception and keeping it from you so that you can focus. I’ll let you know if you aren’t safe or if there are any potential threats.-

I know… Maybe laying down would be better… but she was already there, already in place, and Rane was ready as well.

He smiled over at her. “Are you nervous too?”

She nodded. “Yeah…”

Master Grediv—the only other person in the room—sighed. “There is nothing to be nervous about. You will be perfectly safe and unless you are a true genius—beyond even what we’ve already observed—you will be back out sooner than you’d prefer.” He smiled. “I suspect you’ll be begging for round two all too soon.”

“That may be true.” She shifted slightly, then nodded. “Alright. I’m ready.”

Across from her, Rane leaned his head back against its rest. “Ready.”

Spellforms blazed to life both in the room as a whole and on the chairs themselves, and Tala felt magics invading her mind.

There was a moment of panic in which she almost lashed out to destroy the incoming power, but Alat was there, calming her from within.

-Hey now, Tala. You know what this is. This is expected. You are safe.-

Her breathing was rapid nonetheless. I know. I know. This is the War Games. This will give me insight into how other Mages wield their power. It should also, eventually, allow me to test my own power against things and opponents that are too rare to usually come across, or too dangerous to clash with unaware or unprepared. It will allow me to learn and fail without any lasting consequences.

-That’s right.-

The world around her went… empty as Alat took over and blocked out Tala’s threefold sight. It was as if all of existence had been masked, or she pulled out of it entirely.

Additionally, the magics permeating her mind took over her connections to the external, hijacking them to feed her other information.

Tala blinked and found herself standing on a featureless plain.

She looked down and saw a body holding up her head, but it wasn’t hers. Instead, she was a much taller woman, built for battle and lacking any magics.

Tala felt a shudder run through herself as her mind momentarily rebelled.

There were no magics, no inscriptions, not even any natural magics. The feeling was foreign, alien, and odd to the extreme.

Master Grediv’s voice came to her a moment later, seeming to echo across the plains with no discernable source, “We’ve found that giving Archons a magically empty body for their first scenarios helps them to adjust before we impose differing magics for them to have to acclimate to and seize control of.”

She nodded. That made sense. “So, why am I taller?”

“That is simply the generic female we have set up. Do you need me to alter it to more closely mirror your actual proportions? We will be changing you to mimic the size and build of whoever’s magic you are using later on, elsewise we’d have to come up with entirely new schema in every instance, and no one has time for that.”

She thought for a long moment, then shook her head. “No, but thank you for offering.”

Weapons suddenly blossomed into being around her. “Choose what you’d like to use.”

Tala easily grabbed a glaive that was almost identical to Flow’s glaive form.

“Alright, your weapon is chosen. Let us begin.”

The world fuzzed around her, and she was in a forest clearing.

From the darkness of the woods around her, she heard the growling hiss of a large feline predator.

She strained her eyes, but she couldn’t see her opponent. She couldn’t pinpoint where the threat would come from, and even the noise was such that she couldn’t tell where its source was exactly.

This left her spinning, trying to keep well balanced and prepared for an attack to come at any time from any direction.

It… didn’t work.

She didn’t even hear the creature lunge before it slammed into her back, bearing her to the ground even as it bit into the back of her neck ‘killing’ her.

But that was for later.

She had finally managed to consistently face the massive, sleek cat as it tried to attack her, but that still left her facing a predator that was easily as big as she was. It wasn’t magical or arcanous, but it was far, far too aggressive to be a standard mundane beast.

She had gotten to the point that she was able to keep it at bay with her glaive, but that was where she had stalled. She couldn’t thrust too aggressively, or that might unbalance her and allow the cat to close with her. She couldn’t do sweeping cuts for the same reason.

It was quick, seemingly ducking and dodging with preternatural ease. There was no way a mundane feline was this slippery…

Or I’m just slow… Yeah, that was more likely to be the issue.

Still, she had scored several shallow cuts this round without taking any wounds in turn. Unfortunately, she was wearing out.

In an experience that was far too foreign to her of late—though it was becoming common in these simulations—she wasn’t just getting winded or a bit sore. No. She was nearly exhausted to the point that she was having a hard time moving her weapon.

Well, it seems that I can’t out fight it. My only option, then, is that I’ll have to out think it.

Just then, she stepped on yet another slick patch of forest which gave her an idea. Instead of wrenching herself to stay upright, she allowed herself to fall, gasping to sell the ruse.

Her glaive dropped to the ground still pointed at the beast, but seemingly out of the equation for the moment.

She felt a moment of weakness that almost made the faint feint all-too-real, but she hardened her resolve.

A more cautious predator might have hesitated, might have noticed that she still had an obvious, firm grip on her weapon, but this large cat was not cautious.

The aggression that Tala had counted on showed itself again, and the cat lunged forward. At the same moment, Tala heaved with everything she had to lift her glaive once again.

There was an incredibly satisfying sound of her blade punching through flesh and skittering off bones to align with the gaps and drive deeper. That was followed by a mildly disturbing gurgling hiss. It only took a moment more, and the beast was dead.

Tala opened her eyes in the real world grinning widely. “Yes!”

She rolled parts of her body even as she remained seated to move stiff joints and looked at the window… the dark window. She’d been at this all day. Well… rust.

Rane smiled over at her from his own chair. “Do you want to try working together? Or should we get some food, some sleep, and come at that challenge fresh tomorrow?”

She sighed. Of course he finished before I did… She didn’t let that get her down, though. “I think I could use some sleep, but let’s meet up early tomorrow morning to try our hand at the next scenario. It should be fun to be mundanes, partnering up.”

* * *

Tala stood beside a man who was just a bit taller than her, in a clearing deep within some unnamed woods.

If there are more rusting pumas, I might have a name for these rusting woods.

The man didn’t look like Rane at all, but she knew that he was Rane. He stood like Rane, and the way he carried his long sword was exactly what she would have expected from him. More than that, though, he felt like Rane in some intangible way that she simply couldn’t quantify.

He looked her way, speaking with Rane’s voice. “What?”

“You’re just obviously you.”

He chuckled. “Who else would I be?”

Her eyes narrowed. “A puma in disguise.”

His face twitched, and he looked around, doing a quick check for danger. “Oh, good. They aren’t here yet.”

Still, Tala and Rane could hear movement in the woods around them. The time for dillydallying was over.

Rane made the obvious suggestion first, “Back to back?”

She considered for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, but a few feet apart. I need to be able to wield my glaive without accidently hitting you.”

“Agreed.” He gave her an oddly familiar smile on the unfamiliar face.

Deciding it wasn’t worth focusing on, she simply smiled in return.

A moment later, they had put their backs toward one another while leaving a workable gap. Then, they waited.

What lunged out at them was not, in fact, a large cat.

As Tala jammed her glaive through its hideous face, taking it from the air before letting it fall and finishing it off with a driving thrust into the ground, she felt a wave of revulsion. She couldn’t help but express her disgust out loud, “Giant spiders? Really?”

Rane grunted in agreement, but then came to his former master’s defense, even if only slightly, “He did say that the enemies would be different…”

Tala was not having it, “Well, these things are ugly as rust. How many do you think—”

Rane let out a sharp exhale as he slashed one of the dog sized arachnids that tried to leap onto him with a silent lunge. “More than two, it seems. Focus outward, we can get angry at Master Grediv later.”

She tightened her grip on the shaft of her glaive, “Agreed.”