The test of the tower pt2 (Patreon)

The test of the tower pt1

"Is… this it?" Dark Star asked.

"I mean, we are in the right location, but this is… underwhelming," Becca rubbed her eyes, "Am I repeating what you guys just said before we came here?"

"You are," both Dark Star and Bright Night replied at the same time.

They were currently inside the tower after accepting the test and being transferred to this location. Hills of green that seemed to come out of an animation movie expanded towards infinity. Above them, small puffy white clouds peppered the baby blue sky. Aside from that, there wasn't anything. The entire area was completely barren.

"Sooo….. Do we get a notification or some…" as Star started speaking, the notification she was asking about appeared in front of them.

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First Test

You are currently in a labyrinth created by the tower.

Find a way out.

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"A labyrinth?" Night asked.

"Are you sure?" Star asked the system as if it would reply.

Becca thought about this for a moment, she might have an idea, but she wasn't sure if it was her place to say anything. In the end, her role in the show was to record them, not to help them pass the tests.

"If I'm remembering correctly, the definition of a labyrinth is a place with complicated paths that is hard to find a way out," Night looked around, "There is no rule saying that it has to have walls or anything like that. In a sense, even a desert might be considered a labyrinth."

"Are you sure? That doesn't seem right," Star said.

"Honestly, I don't know. I just thought it might be right. What do you think, Becca?" Night turned to the reporter.

"I… I mean, should I say? The show is about you two," Becca replied.

"So? You are here too, and it's not like the test will understand that you don't want to participate. If you think about something that could help us, you should say. Or are you just going to record and not even help if we are in a bad situation?" Star crossed her arms.

"You have a point. To be honest, I was thinking the same thing that Night said. Just because it says it's a labyrinth, it doesn't have to have walls and stuff. Maybe it's something that we need to figure out in a different way," Becca created a second camera and sent it as high as she could. Unfortunately, she could only send her camera 50 meters away, which didn't help that much in this situation. Even when looking through the camera in the air, all that Becca could see was the same green plains they were seeing on the ground.

"Any luck?" Star asked.

"No, it's just like an aerial view of the middle of the ocean. There is nothing around."

"What if we do something a bit different?" Despite her name, Bright Night wasn't restricted to using her powers only to illuminate things. Night waved her hands and created a small area that changed the day into night. When she finished the spell, she was looking up to the sky trying to find some clue on what to do, but only when her eyes faced the ground did she see what she was looking for. When in the cover of the night, some patches of grass on the ground started glowing green, almost forming a trail for them to follow.

"Could it be that easy?" Star asked.

"Maybe the first step is," Night expanded the area and noticed that there was only a single path. They started following it, with Night taking the lead. When she made a turn to the left, she suddenly vanished.

"Night? Where are you?" Star hurried to where her partner had vanished from and realized that the mage was still there, following the path they found.

"I'm here. What happened?"

"Wait, stop there. You too, Becca. Don't move," Star looked back to the reporter who was still a few meters back, "Night, can you see Becca right now?"

"What are you talking about? She's just there," Night pointed at Becca.

"So you can see her from here," Star sighed in relief.

"Star… do you hear Night? Is she responding?" Becca asked.

"What? You can't hear her?" Star turned to Becca.

"Hear who?" Night asked.

"No, I can't," Becca shook her head.

"OK. Wait. Both of you. Let's do it like this," Star asked them to change places and explained what was happening. Apparently. When someone walked along that path, they would find areas that would not just turn them invisible when looking from certain angles, but they would also stop any sound coming from someone you couldn't see. It was odd that whoever was in those areas could still see the people they left behind, but they couldn't hear them.

Another weird thing was that there wasn't a wall or anything when they tried to follow a different path. Instead, they could just keep walking without anything stopping them. This notion scared the trio. After all, if they started walking without discussing things first, they could have ended up in a place that didn't have any clues or any glowing grass to follow.

To make this work, they had to be close to each other and be careful not to run away too fast. However, this also presented a problem. Moving together like that and being careful not to lose the rest of the party meant their progress would be very slow. Wanting to try something, Becca sent her camera up in the sky again, hoping that now with the sky darkened, she would be able to see the glowing grass on the ground. Despite everyone agreeing that this was a good idea, it didn't work. Her camera couldn't even see the dark sky, and she had no way of changing that. Since Becca already had a floating drone camera, the spell she created was made to look beyond illusions and most magical effects. Which apparently included the darkened area that she was seeing right now, but it didn't include the illusion made by the MAZE.

"I'm not going to lie. It feels a bit cheap. I mean, you are what? Level 30? We are more than double your level, and that spell of yours can see beyond my illusions," Night crossed her arms.

"If it helps, this has 0 practical effects aside from showing an image of a place. And you should've gotten a notification telling you that 'something saw through your spell,'" Becca explained.

"I did, but still."

"Don't be like that, Night. You focus your spells to make a show, not to trick people. Becca focuses on seeing through that. It's just a bad matchup," Star tried to cheer her partner up.

"Honestly, I think it's more about the area of effect. Like small illusions still appear in the camera, but big things like this usually don't. In the wall, for instance. The camera could catch the wall even when everyone was using large spells left and right," Becca continued.

The group kept walking and talking about random things for the next five hours. At times, they would discuss what they were doing or stop so Night and Star could rotate using the spells to darken the area. Both of them could do that, but the way they did it was very different. The spell Night used was essentially like a blanket of darkness softly placed around an area. If you were out of that range, nothing would happen, but if you were inside, you would see the world without sunlight. Star's spell, on the other hand, was more violent. By creating what was essentially a black hole that only pulled in light, she could mirror the effects of Night's spell. However, not only would that spell require more mana, but it would even mess with their sight and with Becca's camera. That made Night feel even worse about her spell, but she did nothing but pout.

After all that time walking, with a few breaks here and there. They reached an area where the glowing grass stopped forming a path and turned into a large circle. Not just that, but aside from the direction where they came from, there wasn't a way to leave this place. If any of them took a few steps outside the circle, they would reach an invisible wall that would stop them from going forward. They tried going back to the path and moving away from the grass to reach where the outer layer of the glowing circle should be, but they couldn't find anything.

Going back to the glowing circle, they tried a few things to see if anything could work. Using some different spells on the circle, on the walls, and trying out the different spells to make the area glow, and yet, nothing worked. Frustrated, they stopped for a moment to rest, laying down on the grass and taking a few of the power bars they had on hand for a meal.

"I kind of forgot how much it sucks to not have some decent food," Star sighed.

"Well… this was the best I could get, sorry," Becca bit a piece of her power bar.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to complain about this. It's just, I kind of expected us to fight some monsters, and we could just get their meat," Star explained.

"Really? You don't have a problem eating monster meat?" Becca asked.

"Not at all. As long as it's been properly cooked and checked for poison or anything. I mean, it's hardly any different than eating cow or pork. I feel like it's even better. That way, we are not killing harmless animals to eat and actually getting meat from things that were a danger to us."

"That's a good point. It's kind of hard to say that it's wrong to eat meat when it's literally a situation of kill or be killed," Becca kept looking at her tablet, reviewing the footage she just got. It was hardly useful. Five hours of just walking wouldn't make for good television. As she did that, Becca opened the camera's live feed that was just by her side. She toyed around with the picture settings and the movements the camera could do. That's when she noticed something odd. Currently, Night was recovering her mana, so there shouldn't be anything interfering with the feed. Becca sat up and called the other two, "Hey, are you guys seeing this in the camera?" she pointed at her tablet.

"That tiny bright spot? Yeah. Is your tablet breaking?" Night asked.

"No, it's the camera. Look," Becca moved the camera around, and the spot moved a little. It was clear that it wasn't something in the tablet but something the camera saw.

"You said that each test was tailored to the people inside it, right?" Star asked.

"Yeah. That seems to be the case, or at least that's what everyone who completed a trial said. Sometimes, it feels odd, and the test seems strange, but in the end, the test is about their abilities," Becca nodded.

"So, in this case, it also counts your abilities. Right?" Night looked up from the tablet.

"I guess so. I mean, the MAZE doesn't care about the show we are doing. It will just see three people here and make the test."

"Then maybe, this part has something to do with you and what you can do with your camera," Night continued.

"Maybe," Becca tweaked the options of her camera again, trying to find a way to make the glow more clear, but nothing worked. Frustrated, she turned back to Night, "Can you use that spell again? Maybe in the darkness, we can see it with the naked eye."

"I doubt it, we should be able to see the bright spot, but I don't have any other ideas either," Night sighed and activated the illusion that turned day into night.

Looking up, they couldn't see anything different, it was still just that pitch black sky. But when Becca turned back to the tablet, her camera was seeing something else entirely. It wasn't just the blue sky with some small clouds, but the night sky completely filled with stars.

"Wow. That is beautiful, but… I don't recognize any of those constellations," Star was looking closely at the tablet.

"Can you find constellations just by looking at a picture like this?" Becca asked.

"Oh yeah. I love that kind of thing, and it kind of fits my theme, you know. Also, being an astronomy geek helps with the spells that try to mirror what stars do," Star smiled.

"So… any idea of what we are seeing here?" Night asked.

"Maybe…" Star paused for a moment, then looked around the area, "This circle could be a star chart."

"OK… what does that mean?" Becca asked.

"Maybe we just need to fill it out. Copy the things we see in the sky to the ground," Star replied.

"Like, a full copy, or do we need to take something off?" Night asked.

"Hang on. There is something else. I think maybe some of these are fake," Star scratched her head.

"How can you tell?" Becca turned to the singer.

"It's hard to explain, some are just too big, they should be planets not stars, and some have a weird light. By the way, I have no clue if what I'm saying is right. It's mostly a feeling."

"Can you figure out what the real ones are?"  Becca asked.

"Maybe, but then what?"

"What if you put the real ones in the circle? This could look like one of those star charts," Night suggested.

"Well… it's worth a shot. May I?" Start gestured to Becca's tablet. With the tablet in hand, she started working, trying to find the difference between the fake stars and the real ones in this weird dark day sky.

###########################################

The screen changed, showing a notification.

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The Test of the Tower

The test is performed on multiple stages, each harder than the last. You will be evaluated by the number of stages you completed, how well you completed each stage and how quickly you completed each stage. After completing the first stage, you can choose to receive your rewards and leave or continue for a harder challenge and greater rewards.

During the test, you are allowed to give up at any moment. By doing so, you will relinquish any rewards you were eligible to receive, and you won't be able to re-challenge the tower for 365 days.

Do you wish to challenge the Test of the Tower?

[Yes]   [No]

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A hand wearing a black glove with some pieces of white metal coming from the fingers forming diamond-shaped chains towards the wrist appeared at the bottom of the screen. The hand moved a little bit, and it warped into another hand. This one wasn't wearing any sort of gloves. Its white skin, exceptionally well-done nails that formed a purple event horizon when they were all together. Several pure white rings with small specks of dark that looked like tiny black stars adorned the base of the fingers. As the hand got closer to the notification, it warped again, now showing a hand with more simple fingerless gloves made out of leather. The nails were also well done, but they didn't make a drawing. It was just a base light green color.

The hand kept moving, now sticking out a finger to touch one of the options in the notification. As it moved closer, the hand warped into the other ones again, each time moving faster until a moment where it seemed like all the hands were on the screen together, overlapping each other. When the hands pressed yes, the screen cracked, and the show's logo appeared 'The tower's challenge.' What followed was a small music number with Bright Night and Dark Star, together with some shots of the tower. Some small clips of them fighting and others of the training or studying almost like it was the opening for a show or a cartoon. Still, the music matched the energy and made everyone watching excited. Before it ended with a shot of the three looking towards the tower, there was a scene with several pictures and clips of other explorers coming out of the tower with large smiles.

Everything went white for a moment and returned to an image of a massive field of green hills with some puffy clouds in a beautiful blue sky. The three women talked for a moment, discussing the ideas and what they could do, and even showing them finding the glowing grass thanks to Night's spells. To finish up that part of the scene, there was the discovery about how the labyrinth worked and how they would vanish when making a turn.

Becca's voice came through as they were walking, "Each person will have a different experience inside the tower. For some, it starts as a battle. Others have to run away from danger. The important part is not to rush to the ending but to understand what is being asked of you."

With a close-up on Bright Night as she cast her dark daylight spell, the singer started speaking, "The test won't be simply something random. What the tower asks of you is always something that you already can do. Here, we figured out the path thanks to a spell that Dark Star and I could use, but discovering that so fast was just a stroke of luck. When you do the test, your first priority should be thinking about the current challenge and what you can do to complete it. If we had started moving just as we arrived, we might have been completely lost."

The image sped up and showed them arriving at the glowing circle. The drone camera moved to the sides and started to fly around the three of them, twisting and spinning between them until the camera hit Becca and fell to the ground facing the grass. Someone picked the camera up and turned to face them. It was Dark Star, who winked at the camera and tossed it high up in the air. The camera spun a couple of times in the air going between the blue sky and the grass field until it stopped in the sky, but it wasn't the blue that everyone was expecting. Instead, it was a night sky filled with thousands and thousands of stars. Dark Star started to hum a tune and walk around the camera. Little by little, the stars came down from the sky, not as if they were meteors, but as if they were simply leaves falling from a tree. But that wasn't happening with all of them. Only some of the stars fell down and vanished behind the camera.

Dark Star's voice came through while the humming was still going on in the background, "Your spells and skills are not all that matter here. Even your knowledge will be counted during the dungeon. Here, if it wasn't because of my knowledge of stars, I would never realize that I had to remove the fake stars that gave off green or purple light, or find the planets in the middle of that galaxy, they were too big to be stars. I also had to use a spell to bring the stars to the ground, but without what I already knew, it would be impossible to finish this task."

The camera went up first and then spun back, turning to the glowing circle on the ground. Now there was a sort of star map inside the circle, forming some constellations that shouldn't be together in the same sky. The image on the screen froze, and the names and lines connecting each constellation appeared for a moment. When things started moving again, the stars coalesced to a point outside the circle, and a notification appeared on the screen.

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First Test - complete

You have found the way out of the labyrinth.

You can leave the test and receive the participation reward.

If you choose to move to the next test, you can receive increased rewards.

Your performance has been graded. Only by leaving the test will you know the grade you received.

[Return] [Continue]
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"Is this enough to get the role?" Night asked.

"Not as far as I'm aware. We need to beat the third test to get that part of the reward. Well, that part is still complicated. Someone got that option as a reward after the second test, but so far, if we want to be sure, we should go at least to the third test," Becca explained as the camera moved behind the trio, showing the door of light in the background.

"Do we even want to know what the rewards for the first test are?" Star turned to Becca.

"It can be a simulation of magic token, a strong item, and maybe even a magic crystal already with a spell on it. Those are good, but nothing you can't get with enough money," Becca gestured to the door, " Should we?"

"We are not getting out of here without the role. Or at least, that's the plan," Night smiled to the camera.

"True, it would be really boring for everyone watching if we stopped right now," Star chuckled.

"I couldn't agree more," Becca winked at the camera.

They all moved their hands to press a button on a notification and the glowing door seemed to change, become crisper and with more details, but the door still didn't open. Instead, a notification appeared before them.

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Second Test

After skies rip, the blind bards forge a union and behold the return of the ancestors.
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"I think the system is getting some poetry lessons," Star smiled.

"Maybe, but it's not very good," Night shook her head before turning to Becca, "What is this test about?"

"I have no idea. Some people got something like that, but each time it was a different objective. The first step is trying to solve the riddle." Becca replied.

"So, do we figure it out here, or do we have to go through the door?" Star got close to the door and tried to push it open, but it felt like she was pushing a solid wall, "What? Why is this not moving?"

"What?" Becca tried to push the door open since she had the higher strength stat here. Maybe this was something she was the only one who could do. Her feet dug into the ground, and she used all her might, but even so, the door wouldn't budge, "OK, it's really stuck."

"I mean, I just told you that," Star rolled her eyes.

"I know. I just figured that this might be something that I had to do. I don't want to be rude, but I'm stronger than you guys. Like physically stronger," Becca explained awkwardly.

"That's fair, but I guess that we have to do something here. Something about ripping the sky?" Night looked up.

"Do you guys have any way to do that?" Becca asked.

"Maybe," Star took a few steps forward, "How about we do the thing we did in Caerion?"

"Oh, I like that idea," Night smiled and stepped to Star's side. They turned around, making their backs face each other while raising one hand almost like they were dancing, "In the darkest night," as Night spoke, dark northern lights appeared in the sky. Replacing the blue sky with the night behind it.

"Shines, the brightest star!" Star finished as the two of them brought down their hands. Showing a star so large that it looked like a twin planet, that spell caused the aurora to expand and change from something somewhat transparent to something solid that almost looked like a river of night with the star under the water. The camera showed the sky and then turned to the three of them. A single leaf appeared on the screen together with the sound of blowing wind, it was very clearly added later, but it helped with the comedic effect.

"That's pretty and all, but… was that supposed to do something?" Becca asked.

"I don't know. I thought that it was the rip the skies thing," Star tossed her arms in the air.

"Well, it was kind of a gamble. This was just our first idea. There was nothing saying that it would work. We need to think about what else can…" as Night talked, the night Aurora that was covering the sky started to grow. It even started to cover the star in the sky.

"Night? Are you doing that?" Star asked.

"No, I'm not. Say close," just as Night finished speaking, the darkness in the sky covered the entire area making it completely pitch black, "Star? Are you here?"

"I'm here. Grab my hand," Star replied, "Got you. Now Becca, where are you? Becca?"

"Becca?!" Night screamed, but the screen was still black.

The test of the tower pt3

The test of the tower pt4