———Charli———
She arrived with Quentin and was first in line, she turned back and saw all the other nobles and the few commoners. Among them was a boy with white hair and a broken nose. She recognized him from her shop earlier this morning, he looked malnourished and underprepared. "Quentin, who is that boy?" She pointed him out.
He turned to follow her finger, "Atlas? Angelica's tits he actually came? I saw him earlier but to think he was being serious... I guess if I were in his shoes I'd do the same but... he's gonna get himself killed." He almost laughed, Charli didn't find it so funny.
She glared at him, "Don't use the Goddess's name in vain, and don't be so harsh. Any form of challenge can happen... he may get lucky."
The guard at the tower looked down to Charli "50 silver please." He said in a deadpan monotone. She smiled and hand him 50 silver. "Head in."
She rushed in.
She walked in cautiously, entering the first room. Although it seemed to be a brick-lined grand library, it was a puzzle room. Swords were hung and even mana and essence pistols were ornately placed around the beautiful Library. Her eyes couldn't linger though, she had a much more pertinent thing to focus on. On the other side of the library, there was a half-transformed werewolf. He noticed her as soon as she noticed him... "Silver!" She was prepared, as soon as he ran towards her she tossed a silver coin at him and it halted him as the sound of hissing and crackling filled the room. The silver was burning him but the small coin didn't hold him for long. She looked for a dagger and rushed to find a silver one but was running out of time as the werewolf recovered. He began to run again and then pounced at her. She grabbed two knives and just stabbed forward, "Please!" she cried as she pushed the blades up. He jumped onto her blades, one of the weapons slid in with ease finding no resistance in his skin and fur. She threw it off of her and panted and with a smile, she let out a sigh of relief, "One down." She turned over and ripped the knives free of the Beasts body.
She went to the next room, she saw a puzzle two unlit torches and four different flames. Red, blue, yellow, and white.
The first torch read "what can fly without wings."
The next torch read "I can't be bought but I can be stolen with a glance."
She walked over to the door for the next room but upon trying it, she found it was locked. She wasn't the best at riddles, but being a well-educated noble she wasn't all that bad either. "The first one is... time? And the other is love? But what does that-" suddenly the walls started to close in and she panicked. She started hyperventilating as one of her greatest fears had been small spaces and feeling trapped. The tower takes advantage of your greatest fears, just push through. But it's almost impossible to convince yourself a fear is irrational even if you know it... and in this case, it wasn't. She made a clicking sound like a clock, but nothing seemed to happen, "The colors! Two represent a riddle." She put the knives away and grabbed the torches. She lit one torch red, then she lit the other blue, and the door unlocked. She ran for the door torches in hand.
She burst into the next room where she saw a giant web. Her legs quaked with fear, "Please no." A massive horse-sized spider slowly dropped down from a web. She threw a dagger at the web causing it to slam into the floor prematurely. She then threw the other dagger into its face giving her the opportunity to sneak behind it, "Kill it with fire!" She threw the torches into its hairy back igniting its hairs and causing the spider to be set ablaze. It turned to her as it let its shrieks pierce the air, the rage and agony so thick it was palpable. It ran but with all its impairments and her agility, she was able to jump out of the way causing it to crash into the wall where she just was. The force of the slam shook the empty room; the spider's body going limp as the shrieking stopped.
She made it to the next room. Where there was a fountain with a statue of the beautiful Goddess. She went up to the fountain. "This is it I guess...." she drank from the fountain. A burning sensation like a cast iron was branding her flushed through her right arm and her heart. She saw symbols on them and she recognized them. She poured essence into her arm mark, and she suddenly gained awareness and knowledge she didn't have before. complex runes and symbols flooded her mind as the knowledge of the Mana Shaper Classification came to the forefront of it, "Hmmm I can work with that."
She then poured essence into her heart mark, again causing symbols and runes of all types to fill her mind and vision as she gains the knowledge of the enchantress, a class she had never even heard of before.
———Quentin———
He ran in with barely containable excitement, he was going to win this and he was going to make sure he got the best classes in the county. He saw a bunch of floating tiles and a door on the other end. He saw on the door a message that said, "Just take a leap of faith."
"What the-" He started to look around and head away from the area but he saw nothing "There has to be another way. No, it's a must." He ran hopping from tile to tile, getting closer to the door as he pranced carefully. The distances between tiles became larger and larger. On his last jump, he missed the tile and had to grab on to it as his body dangled. He pulled himself up and saw that the next few tiles were so far apart that the jumps would be impossible so someone without a combat class centered around agility. "How the hell do I make that?" He looked to the door and read the words aloud, "All it takes is a leap of faith." He took a deep breath, then without really meaning to... he jumped into the abyss below.
He fell, and fell, and fell, it seemed endless, "Is this my end?"
Then, he crashed with a splash and a thud! He landed into what seemed like a shallow pool of murky water. He swam to shore just as the snap of an alligator's mouth rang out behind him. He rushed forward and saw the next door on the other side of the shallow pond. The gator didn't seem intent on letting him cross.
"Did you suffer the same fate as I? Ravenous creature!!" He laughed as he attempted to dust himself off. It ultimately failed as the dust held fast and clung to his wet clothes. He got close but not too close and taunted it his way. "Not so strong out of the water are you!" It charged on to the land after him. He hopped over and onto its back with a hard heavy jump. It nipped his leg in the process. He grabbed it around its neck and bent backward. It started to inch closer to the water and roll in an attempt to free itself.
He calmed himself going with the roll, steeling his will, then as it began to slow he grabbed an eyeball of the gator, digging his fingers into the socket, and yanked it out. The gator got more vicious as it happened and he crawls up its body as it spun and he punched it's about getting it to stall for a moment that he took to get out from under it and run. He made it a few feet away before it started to chase him into the water. He swam but it began to catch up. He just made it to shore when it went for another chomp. As it happened he lunged out of the way and then jumped onto its head steel boot first. There was a crunch as the alligator began to sway. He then Tritek to get his fingers in the eye hole attempting an overly complicated way to kill the gator. It snapped at his arm catching it. Again it began the death roll but this time, with adrenaline in his veins, he was faster. He punched it in its remaining eye-blinding it. He struggled away from its grip and made a run for the door. It started to recover and chase him. He again steeled his will, stuck his hand in the exposed part of his damaged arm and he pulled some flesh from the bone and threw it back to distract the gator. It worked. He made it to the next room where he saw a throne and tired as ever, he rested upon the throne. He sat down on it and looked out into nothingness "is this what it's like to be a ruler to be the one on top."
A mark burn into his right arm and another on his forehead. "Damn this hurts." He took out a mirror to look at the one on his forehead, but he didn't recognize what had appeared, the other on his right arm he recognized it immediately, it was the arcane blade classification.
He poured essence into them and gained the understanding that felt like it was always there, his mind flooded with complex runic scripture as he gained access to the knowledge of the Chronomancer and Arcane Blade.
———Atlas———
He walked in, bruised and already beaten from his altercation earlier. When his foot touched the marble floor of the plain room he smiled as he saw the riddle. "Yes!!! I won't die in the first room." He exclaimed.
"What makes a king and what makes a man." Two bowls on a scale one for king and one for man. He saw a sword, a rope, a key, and a heart, and a larger heart that he could put in the scales.
Do I have to balance them? He weighed each item and noticed the smaller heart was heavier. He put the heart on the man scale, then he put the sword on the king. The large heart was still lighter than the sword. "The man with the key is king and the one that wears the crown bares a heavy heart..." he put the heavy heart and key with the sword and everything else on the other end. Turns out all of the lectures Joffrey had given him before beating him helped for once. He grabbed the sword back as the door opened and when he went in nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.
"Hello, there boy." It was a pale man with fangs... a vampire? His sharp features, mid-length dark hair, and muscular demeanor had him appear very handsome and intimidating. "I'm a creature of the nigh- what!?! You aren't human?" He looked at him with an incredulous expression.
Damnit maybe if I had a silver coin or weapon... "Hmm you smell funny," the vampire said. "Arcane? Too small, too weak, Arcaneling perhaps." The vampire walked around lost in thought. "Hmm, I could use the meat bag, but if you died here they'd find me... let me feed on you and I'll let you pass."
And let you grow stronger and who's to say you aren't lying. "Oh um... No"
"Why not?" he asked surprised, "I'd have expected someone like you to have been mistreated or abused, a free pass to the next round would be far better than dying here don't you think, even weakened as I am here I'm still far too strong for you. It's like the dungeon wants you dead.
"Before I walked into this building I made a vow to myself that I would let no one else walk on me again. You could be lying."
"Hmmm, it's not walking on you, it's a trade, I can walk on you and take it but willingly and we both get out of here. I'd rather not kill an arcane that I can feed on later... your species is rare, to say the least..."
"That makes sense though I wouldn't let you feed on me again... what's an arcane?"
"I'll tell you if you let me feed on you again."
"I-" he's a tricky bastard. "I see in that case go ahead."
"Perfect." The vampire bit down on his neck for a second time, then released. "That's the best... I'll see you sometime after you get out my little arcane." The door to the next room opened.
Atlas looked back at him in disgust as if someone had just taken a dump in his cereal as he was about to eat it. He left to go through the next door.
On the other side of the door, he saw a dungeon with shackles inside. He silently cursed, he knew this was the final room and that he was supposed to interact with the shackles in some way but there were only so many normal purposes of shackles. This moment was supposed to symbolize his inner self.
He reluctantly put the shackles on, and as he did a searing pain filled his body in waves coming from his right hand and all the shackles. They started shining then cracking and finally shattering away.
He saw five marks appear on his arm but none he recognized as classifications, in fact, they were all the same basic mark. In all fairness... he didn't know many classifications. He examined the marks thoroughly but saw nothing further. "The Goddess branded me?"
He exited the tower and immediately wanted to head back in. Joffrey walked up to Atlas "HAHAHA!!! The fool didn't even get a classification!" He laughed so hard he started wheezing. "I got the Bruiser and Ranger Classifications, I was born for greatness."
"I have five marks. That's good enough for me."
Joffrey looked them over "hehe, yeah marks, not classes, looks like the Goddess took pity on you and gave you access to the system via some tats." He chuckled but Atlas could see that Joffery felt... threatened? No one ever talked about having marks like his, but then again there was no one like him, Joffery must have been unsure what it meant and feared it instinctually. Whatever the reason Atlas was over it.
Atlas was tired of this talking, "Nobody cares about your Classifications. Keep that shit to yourself." He immediately regretted the words as they came out.
Joffery's fist glowed blue as he punched Atlas in his gut, immediately folding him like an omelet, unlike atlas when Joffery and anyone else got a class, they'd automatically learn how to activate the abilities for its stage, "what did I say earlier... That's not how you speak to your betters."
---------- Zena ----------
Her eyes shot open as the carriage she had stowed away in was stopped. She sniffed the air smelling approximately 3 bronze ranked auras, "They don't even hide their power?" their smell was putrid, but she could smell something sweeter much further away, something familiar. It completely drew her attention away, so much so she hardly noticed them opening up the compartment she was hidden away in. "Beloved?" A man in head-to-toe dark wraps and a blonde woman in leather armor moved the blanket covering her, "Oh... Greetings."
The pair yelped in alarm before the woman cleared her throat, "Get out and explain yourself." Zena looked over to the man who was already hassling the elderly couple transporting what she assumed was grain. she got out from the compartment and fell onto the dirt road.
"Sorry, I'm not accustomed to sleeping- for long periods I mean." The truth is she had been practicing the art of sleeping ever since she left the castle 80 years ago. She was an extremely light sleeper but it always left her disoriented. She heard two, quick shrieks but it would have been too faint for a human to hear, something more akin to a dog or wolf might be able to pick it up but for Zena it was childsplay.
The man came back around, "You aren't with them supposedly, explain or we'll be forced to take you back with us."
"Oh... I am Princess Zena, daughter of the king of the nearest vampire territory."
They drew their weapons, they both seemed to use swords but the woman drew two short swords while the man drew a long zanbatō, a long curved blade with one edge, "a vampire, well I'm sure the slave master would have use for one, especially a royal."
Zena stretched and smiled brightly revealing her fangs, she loved that she didn't have to hold back with these cretins but she really was curious about the smell and it was drifting further and further away. "I'm sorry I don't have time to chat with bronze rank slavers. This isn't my issue so you may as well leave me out of it." The man probed her defenses with a quick jab of his blade, she raised her hand and the tip barely broke her skin, "Dull tip, and you don't even coat your weapons in essence or mana? Well, manipulating mana is easier in the afterlife so allow me to give you some tips, anything you touch should become an extension of their being, for example..." she yanked the sword from his grip and caught the handle. Suddenly the blade glowed blue. Energy lept from the blade's edge as she swung it. Just like that, in one slash, Zena had cut them down. "I'm coming beloved."