The questions lingered long after the whisper faded—like dust motes caught in haunted light, impossible to grasp, yet impossible to ignore.
What would you give to reach truth?
What would you fake to pretend you already had?
They weren't just words. They clung to the skin. Curled behind the ears. Coiled like parasites between ribs and reason. Every breath afterward felt infected with their presence, like the cave had exhaled something poisonous and philosophical all at once.
No one spoke.
They sat, scattered across the pale-stone tavern that pretended to be a place of rest but radiated hunger. The lantern above them flickered on its rusted chain, its sputtering light no comfort. The pool of water beyond remained still—too still—its surface too perfect, like a mirror afraid to ripple. The trees within it leaned like they wanted to drown but couldn't remember how.
Rei broke the silence. "I think it's the riddle."
His voice cut through the fog of uncertainty like a blade drawn with too much restraint. No one asked which riddle—everyone already knew. The next trial. The next wall demanding payment in truth, in blood, in something less definable.
"It's not just a riddle," Mira murmured, folding her arms tight across her chest as if to keep the question out. "It's a demand. Like the others."
"Maybe it's asking for a real answer," Brin said, hopeful, almost too hopeful. "Something honest. We just… say what we'd give. Out loud."
"No," Calden replied. His tone was dry stone sliding over steel. "Too clean. This place doesn't want honesty. It wants something it can take."
"Like an item?" Mira asked, though she sounded unconvinced the moment the words left her lips. "Maybe it's literal. Like before—blood, memory, a piece of yourself. Something tangible."
The group lapsed into silence again, not in agreement, but in quiet spirals of private speculation. Everyone thinking different things. Everyone caught in the gravity of the same unspoken thought:
If the past trials all demanded sacrifices...
Then what would this one demand?
No one dared speak it. But it crept through their collective mind like rot behind a cathedral wall.
Slowly, they drifted from the center of the chamber. From the table. From the water. And—deliberately—from Erasmus.
He still sat exactly where he had been. Legs crossed. Back against the wall slick with moss. Drawing little circles into the floor with his fingertip, humming tunelessly like a child who didn't know he was humming. He looked... content. Detached. Too still for someone surrounded by so much unease.
And that, more than anything, disturbed them.
"He hasn't been right in the head since the beginning," Mira whispered, voice barely more than breath. "Says he's blessed by some god, but I've never seen him pray. He acts broken when it's convenient. He wants us to pity him."
"He's cleverer than he lets on," Riven murmured back. "But that's the problem. We don't know when he's not acting."
"He's not one of us," Brin said, eyes locked on Erasmus. "Didn't train with us. Didn't grow up in the Creed halls. He's a stranger. For all we know, he's part of this Trial. Planted here to mess with us."
"He's not," Caelum muttered, just a little too fast. "He's not that smart."
But even he didn't believe that. Not really. The doubt curled under his words like a blade hidden behind a smile.
The only reason anyone still followed Erasmus was the sliver of hope he dangled before them—the idea that he knew something. That he had insight. But even that hope was beginning to decay, like pastries dissolving after having liquid on them.
They moved closer together, forming a loose circle. A quiet, unspoken strategy session. They didn't want Erasmus hearing what they'd learned back home—what the Instructors had taught them about how to interpret divine language, or navigate the ambiguities of test chambers like this. No point giving away advantages to a wild card.
They had things to protect.
Things to hide.
Brin leaned in, breaking the moment. "Caelum, can't you just use your Faith again?"
Caelum rolled his eyes so hard it looked painful. His voice dripped sarcasm. "What, you want me to stand on a barrel and scream, 'I Vow to clean all this filthy water and make a floor appear in the pond'?"
Brin winced but didn't reply.
Caelum's posture shifted—mockery gone. Voice serious now. He lowered his tone, but not his guard.
"My Creed isn't a tool," he said. "It's a chain. The more I Vow, the more I'm bound. The restrictions layer over each other. Some I didn't even remember agreeing to." His jaw tensed as thought about this cruel Trial he had assumed to be the culprit of erasing his memories. "I only use it when someone's about to die."
Mira looked away. Brin stared at the stone floor like it could give him courage.
"I wish I had one," Mira whispered.
Brin nodded. "My Instructor said I wasn't ready. Said I needed to know what I believed before I could make it real."
"They always say that," Mira muttered. "But they never tell you how to find it."
"Mm," Calden grunted, arms crossed. "These young folks and their daydreams."
No one laughed.
It wasn't funny.
They sat there a while, the quiet growing heavier with every breath. This wasn't just fatigue. This was the weight of being surrounded by something ancient and unsympathetic. A place shaped by sacrifice. A riddle dressed in hunger.
They shared what they could.
Hid what they must.
Prepared, in the way only the unprepared ever could.
And then—
A voice pierced the stillness. High-pitched. Mock-innocent. A child's sing-song tone at the edge of a funeral.
"Are you guys done yet?"
Erasmus.
His voice echoed across the cavern like it didn't belong here. Like it didn't care if it belonged.
Riven's knuckles whitened. His fist curled, tight and deliberate. The mental fatigue was catching up with him. He didn't even look up. "No. Don't interrupt us. We're trying to figure out how to get out of the mess you placed us in."
Silence.
A pause, just long enough for someone to start hoping that was the end of it.
Then came the voice again. Not innocent this time—smug. Not mean-spirited, just… too proud. Like a child who found the answer to a puzzle and couldn't wait to show the adults how smart they were.
"Oh? Well," Erasmus chirped, "I've figured out how to pass this trial."
The group froze.
Mira stood, slowly. Her fingers hovered near her belt knife. "…What?"
"I said—" Erasmus repeated, with exaggerated cheer. "I know how to get through."
He didn't elaborate. Didn't gesture. Didn't rise from the ground.
He just waited.
And for the first time since they'd entered this twisted cathedral of false comfort and deeper threats...
It felt like Erasmus wasn't the fool anymore.
It felt like he was the only one holding cards they hadn't seen.