B3 Chapter 385: Tales, pt. 4

Kenva stumbled through the portal, and suddenly she was somewhere else.

She got her bearings quickly. Someone like her, with her upbringing and the life her people lived — moving on the road and seeing new sights every day — was long used to taking in what was around her in an instant.

She was not, however, used to finding herself in an empty void.

A pale blue-grey nothingness stretched out around her, with an endless road floating beneath her feet. It shot into the distance, slowly vanishing to a point. Frowning, she looked around and confirmed that it stretched both ways.

There was nothing else. No details. No danger that she could see.

Interesting.

She knew these trials were supposed to test their aspects, but she didn’t see how this could fit any of hers — at least the ones she’d already gathered. Especially not Corporus.

The insight it had brought her was one she had known well; had been aware of since she was young. Though, one she perhaps had never fully internalized until that moment of ignition, after they had slain the Guardian defending the entrance.

She was a free spirit, but in her experience — seeking freedom, excitement, and new experiences as she did — you needed to be flexible. To bend, so you didn’t break. It was an ethos she lived by. Not just in how she fought, but in the way she approached conflict and hardship in general.

It made her aspect doubly suitable — both in its representation of her being, and in the physical agility it granted her.

That mindset helped her now, as she processed the feeling of her new trait. Stormsoul.

It was fascinating, in a way. The stats were one thing — plus one to both Constitution and Dexterity was nothing to sniff at — but more notable was the new way in which she could feel the stillness of the air against her skin. She adjusted quickly, of course. But fully integrating this new sense? She could tell it would take a while.

Already, it was a heady thing to process. Almost as if she had swaddled herself in an itchy blanket — painfully aware of every scrap of her skin that touched it.

Shaking the thoughts off, Kenva gave herself a once-over, inventorying what she had available.

A spike of worry shot up her spine as she realized that her ring was missing, but she pushed past it. Already this trial was different from what she expected. There was no onslaught of challenging enemies.

It was something deeper. Something more personal. She assumed that whatever it was, her storage ring would have gotten in the way of it.

She could do without her bow and weapons. She’d be fine.

Slightly more concerning were the iron chains she found wrapped around her mana pool when she looked inwards. That could be problematic — it’d stop her from using almost all her skills, most of them having at least a token mana cost to their use.

But no matter.

She would make do with what she had. She had her health, her stamina, and the strength of her body. What she needed now was to ready herself mentally for what would no doubt come. She very much doubted this challenge was limited simply to an endless open road.

Taking a seat, she closed her eyes and breathed. Listening to the world around her. Feeling the air on her skin. She approached the new sensation with open hands — allowing it to wash through her and past her, as she gradually grew more comfortable with pushing it to the side.

She did not get long, for it was only a minute later that the great system’s words spilled across her eyes.

**Ding! You have challenged the Trial of Contortion!**

**Immerse yourself in Corporus, and prove your ability through flexibility and agility.**

**Surpass the obstacles without making contact! Be warned, those of lacking ability have no place on the Path — to forfeit is to abandon this Crucible!**

Leaping to her feet, she poured over the notification.

She hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t that. What on earth could it mean by obstacles? There was nothing here — just an empty road in a void.

Though, if she was supposed to push her Corporus, a trial of flexibility and control made sense.

Hopefully it would be fun. She grinned, moving through the series of stretches her mother had taught her as a girl. While she was long past the point they would actually help, it did focus her mind.

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No doubt it wouldn’t be easy, but she’d grown up with games of physical ability. Who could scale the cliff the fastest? Who could climb highest in the tree? Who could dance across the river rocks — submerged in a whitewater spray where a single misstep would see bones broken and skin split?

She’d been undefeated there, and it would be the same here. She didn’t need a reason to push herself. Her body, her control, her fluidity, her life: it demanded precision. How else would she go where no one else had?

A quarter-league down the road, a wall of shimmering orange snapped into being. Colossal, it stretched into infinity — larger than anything she had seen before. Even the distant oceans on her rare trips to the eastern coast hadn’t been so imposing.

Yet there was a hole. Four longstrides wide, and four tall, it hovered a handspan above the road.

The wall drew closer — though at a snail’s pace.

She looked at it in disbelief. Her trial couldn’t possibly be jumping through the hole — but what else could be described as an obstacle in this empty space?

A thin bolt of dread shot up her spine. If her first obstacle was this easy, what would happen if she touched the wall? That much energy, stretched over so much…it must have been potent.

She banished the thought from her mind. No matter, she simply wouldn’t fail.

Kenva jogged forward, toward the scintillating energy and the hole within it. Reaching the opening, she stepped through as easily as she had any of the other dozens of steps before it.

Behind her, the wall flashed and crackled as it dissolved into vanishing motes of energy.