It couldn't be real—that was the only thought that ran through Elias's mind as he succumbed to the lady in front of him. She looked just as he remembered, her beautiful and caring eyes locked with his. Her tall and comforting form flooding him with emotions that he could not hold inside.

  Tears immediately began to run down his face as a smile fell across his face.

  She spoke "El, darling. I've missed you"

  They were the only words that he needed to hear before he knew he had lost to whatever this vision was. It didn't matter whether it was real or not. He had longed for her voice, longed for her presence, longed for her to live for so long that he dismissed any notion of…well anything.

  "I've-I've missed you, mum." He said in between sobs that came freely as all his senses returned, this was as real as anything he'd ever felt.

  "Tell me, El, what's happened? Why are you so sad?" the words came from his mother in a tone that relieved all tension from his mind and she moved to sit on the bed next to him.

  "Nothing mum. Nothings happened and nothing’s wrong" He returned as his emotions danced throughout his body.

  He stared at his mother's face and her eyes for a long time as her hand held his.

  He simply took in this moment, this Twins-given moment, to spend more time with her.

  "Will you stay with me?" his mother said after a slight pause.

  He snapped out of his daze and turned his head slightly as he thought how to respond, he wanted to say yes, but something was stopping him.

  Thump!

  Elias's eyes opened wide as along with the pulse in his chest came a surge of pain throughout his entire body. He flinched and gritted his teeth, just as quickly as the pain came it left.

  "Darling?" his mother said.

  "It's nothing," Elias began as he committed to his desires, he ignored the pulse of his chest, "I will—"

  Thump!

  Pain forced itself upon him once more and he grimaced.

  His mothers face scrunched into slight sadness that threatened to tear his heart in two, "El, please stay with me… don't leave me"

  "I won't leav—" he tried to say.

  THUMP!

  More forceful than any of the previous pulses of his heart this one forced the pain to every single nerve in his body and Elias gasped for air. A dark voice echoed in his mind:

  "We're not WEAK! Fight"

  The voice seemed to embed itself within him, Elias's eyes widened, and a clarity washed over him. One that was neither timely, nor welcome. And as it did his vision began to fade again.

  "Mum! I will stay with you… I will—"

  "NO!" the overbearing voice sounded once more.

  And with that, black encased his vision completely and the visage of his dreams disappeared.

  They were quickly replaced with all three of the previous nightmarish sensations turned up to maximum. He screamed aloud with both frustration and agony as his body was moving by itself. His chest still thumping with both his heart and the now overly active core.

  His fingers passed the final threshold and the sensations faded on his now freed limb. Elias pushed fully through and the freedom of the air embraced him as he fell to his knee's over the final threshold.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  He breathed rapid, shallow breaths as he tried to regain his composure. Elias was tormented now with torrent of emotions: anger, frustration, joy, sadness and more—he had finally been given a way out—one that he would accept. To spend just another few moments with his mum, any price was worth the cost.

  His core seemed to react and it was almost as if he could understand what it had said.

  "Yes, even my life" he spat through gritted teeth.

  Before he could dwell on any more of his own thoughts a notification popped into view—at the same time as the double doors ahead of him opened.

  [Sub-objective updated: Pass the Trials of Orus 0/1]

  [Hidden objective: Pass the Trial of Greed 1/1]

  [Hidden objective: Pass the Trial of Aptitude 1/1 ]

  [Bonus objective: Unlock the hidden Trial 1/1]

  [Hidden objective: Pass the Trail of Conviction 1/1]

  Elias dismissed the notification in annoyance, "Still more."

  There were a number of questions that had arisen from the events that had just taken place, but Elias had neither the energy, nor the state of mind to dwell on them. They were thoughts for another time, one not plagued with the memories of his mother, the voice of his best-friend and potential lover, nor the insidious words of his old-mentor and the closest thing to a father Elias had ever had.

  He stood and walked towards the doors, the same veil over the threshold as with the previous exit from the trial.

  He passed through the doorway and took in the following room, this room was different from any he'd seen so far and relief washed over him. "Yeah, I could do with hitting something," he said as he moved deeper in the room.

  The circular room that he found himself in was relatively small in comparison to the previous couple, but was still larger than anything he had experienced within a 'normal' sized building. But this dungeon was anything but normal.

  In the centre of the room was a floating platform, suspended roughly a foot in the air and spanned about two meters in diameter, out from the centre in all directions were both armour and weapon stands of all sorts. Any type of armour or weapon you could imagine or that he had read about it books was present in the room ahead of him.

  His mind jumped straight to what this meant—a fight lay ahead of him and like all good tales of adventurers, that would likely spell the final trial that he would face.

  A final encounter with an aberration ended all good stories and this dungeon seemed to follow a lot of logic from ancient legends—a great deal of pain and challenge, followed by a big boss.

  The anger within Elias all boiled up to him being quite impatient to engage in combat, a slither of rationality remained however as he looked himself up and down. Barely a scrap of material remained on his dirt-and-blood covered body and his sword had been severely damaged from the fights with the Urstoks, Naeru and Mooshrooms, not being able to maintain it in any way after engaging with acid based entities was not good—furthermore, his blade had been submerged in the corrosive corruption well, and whilst it hadn't looked as though it had damaged the blade—He was sure it must have done.

  Elias quickly discarded both his clothing and the sword and began to rummage around the armoury ahead of him. What weapon would he pick? Mace, no—a fight with the Urstoks would have been next to impossible without a blade. Axe? Definitely not, he was mad, but he wasn't a mindless berserker—he had no intention of hacking at monstrous creatures with a wood-chopping utensil. Sword? Well, he guessed it had to be. It was the weapon he'd had a level of training with from both Jacob and Uthred and it had also proved rather reliable in the Dungeon so far, but he wouldn't just choose a sword. No, his hands found purchase on the large round wooden shield that had rested against the outer wall. He lifted the shield with ease and scanned it.

  [Shield - Tier: 1 - Common - Wood - Level: 10

  'Defend yourself against basic attacks and skills with this round shield. It is made of wood and is vulnerable to fire.']

  He shrugged as whilst it was nothing special—it was better than his forearm, his previous buckler in the Dungeon.

  The sword he'd picked up also displayed nothing of note as he had scanned it, other than both items being level ten. He didn't really know what this meant for items, or that they even had levels, but it made sense. There was no way that the sword Elias had entered the dungeon with could have made contact with Jacob's rune-etched blade and survived the encounter. It wasn't only the skill of the user, but the power of the blade itself—it had to be high level.

  Now with both his main and off-hand armed, he looked for armour—his aim was simply to experience 'less pain'. His thoughts on how to achieve this were both a balance of movement and resistance to blunt and clawing attack—both the most common against the Urstoks and Naeru. He couldn't really do much with armour against the Mooshrooms—other than ensure he wasn't encased in full metal.

  With his thoughts clear on the matter, Elias adorned a leather under-armour and a chain shirt. Leather boots that fell just beneath his knees and a thin leather glove on his off-hand. He was conscious that his Flames of Orus skill might just burn through any armour he was wearing and had thought it best to leave one hand unencumbered by the possibility.

  Whilst he knew this might hamper his versatility in battle, with being unable to use either hand to cast his skill—he ultimately decided that the padding his glove would provide on any absorbed blows was likely better in the long run.

  It went without saying that he did not pickup a helm of any kind, impairing his vision, or any of his senses by wearing a helmet had never made sense to him and he found himself confused whenever he saw depictions of adventurers wearing closed-plate helms.

  Shaking off his errant thoughts, he stepped onto the platform, which he assumed would whisk him through the platform-sized hole in the ceiling.

  After he had moved onto the platform, and it had remained suspended in place for a few moments he sighed. "Mana," he muttered as he crouched down and placed his right hand on the floor of the platform—he channelled, ignoring the pain and felt a slither of his own mana penetrate into it. It began to move.

  He kept channelling as the platform ascended through the ceiling, as it passed through, His vision was replaced with darkness—darkness that remained outside of the bounds of the platform as it lifted in the void around him. The platform continued for a number of minutes before Elias made out a larger platform above him, with a perfectly sized circle cut-out of it. "Typical," Elias said as the platform slotted into it with ease and jolted to a halt.

  He now found himself in the centre of a larger platform that was entirely void of…anything. The platform was made of a smooth stone and dusted over with a thin layer of dark sand, it seemed perfectly level and lining the edge was a three-four foot tall stone barrier, beyond the barrier—more void.

  He stepped off the platform and looked around for anything he had missed. "Nothing… Yet at least…" he knew that the armoury below indicated only one thing would occur in this trial and he kept himself steeled for the oncoming rush of conflict.

  His eyes peeled and his body tense he took a few more steps forward—in the direction that he had faced as he ascended on the now symmetrical area.

  Sounds of crackling air and a rush of wind alerted him, and he saw three shapes emerging from nothingness, equally spaced around the platform. Crimson energy spiralled in vortexes, the pitch blackness in their centres expanding as they coalesced into full-sized portals.

  His heart responded to the approaching threat by speeding up, he tried to maintain control as he breathed rhythmically—something he had practiced during his spars with Uthred and a technique he had yet to accomplish carrying out in the manic dungeon. He would focus now.

  The portals spun and cracked with the essence of corruption and out from each emerged familiar and disturbing sights.

  "Urstok - Race: Urstok - Tier 1 - Level: 10 – Equal Power"

  "Mooshroom - Race: Mushroom - Tier 1 - Level: 10 – Equal Power"

  "Naeru - Race: Crab - Tier 1 - Level 10 – Equal Power"

  He grimaced as his eyes fell upon each of the three emerging threats, before he looked inwards:

  [Elias Grey - Race: Human - Tier 0 - Level: N/A]