CH265

Ben pinched the bridge of his nose as he took it in. He was still determined to get them out of there, it was only a matter of how long it would take. He was sure it was possible, it just wouldn’t be easy, so he needed to know what sort of time limit he was on.

“Alright, how long can you live without food?”

“Pretty sure my kind can manage about three weeks, but it won’t be a happy three, I can tell you that.”

“So then our options are either me getting us out in the next two, or else trying to complete the trial before you starve,” Ben said with a sigh. “I’ll leave it up to you man, what do you want to do? I still think I can get us out eventually, but who’s to say if I can manage it in that time limit? Not to mention that if it doesn’t hand out more food then I think I’m on a tighter time frame than you are.”

The crab thought for a minute before letting out a groan. “Between basically certain death trying to work our way through this stupid thing and starving while you see if you can get us out, I choose starving for now at least. Let’s see how I feel in a couple days though.”

“Sounds good. In that case, I guess I’m going to get back to it. Not sure if I can actually break any of the enchantments that make up this trial, but I might be able to lay my own to modify them. We’ll see.”

With time of the essence, he saved the leftover food for later in case no more showed up and got to work, moving around the room to study the enchantments and trying to build a model in his mind of just what they did.

This seems wrong. What’s happening here?

He’d spent two whole days looking everything over and experimenting as he went, trying to get an understanding of the trial as he did, but with minimal luck. While he was lucky at least that the trial seemed to provide those two pieces of food each day, Greed was less so as he struggled with the hunger gnawing within him.

More important though was the change occurring within the magic of the trial, or at least the parts that seemed to be moving. There was a certain section he kept finding himself going back to, watching it change as the hours went on. It had started off as four rings of mana, but now it was down to a single one, the magic on it altering itself as the prior four had and it was picking at his brain.

I feel like I should know what’s happening here. It should be obvious, what about it is screaming out to me?

He’d gone over the entire room, and while there were other enchantments that seemed to be moving and changing on their own, these ones had stood out. He’d taken note of them after they lost their first ring, planning on checking them again after he looked at different sections a little longer in the hopes of seeing another change, with them being down to two by the time he’d decided that he should be devoting himself to that section.

Since he hadn’t had any luck with breaking the enchantments himself he decided he should actually sit down and look it over, to see how they destroyed themself, but that had been no help to him either. The ring had simply broken. There was no apparent reason that gave away what had occurred, unless of course there was some sort of kill switch within the enchantment itself, giving it a time limit.

“Wait shit! A time limit, this is a fucking countdown!”

It all snapped into place in his mind. The trial wasn’t going to just let them sit there on their hands for weeks as he worked to figure out how to get out of there, this was meant to be a challenge from a god, and Ben could only doubt that it would be so kind as to just let him out once the last one broke.

All of his minds were in a blaze as he compared the current structure of the ring to the previous one and felt his stomach sink. If it really was a countdown then he had minutes to do something. He already knew he wasn’t going to be able to break out in that time but he was certain staying would be a death sentence, meaning there was really only one option.

In a panic he looked for Greed and ran to the small crab, scooping him up before he could explain anything and rushing to the door at the other end of the room as he felt something in the air change. The density of mana around them thickened in a way he felt validated his choice as he pushed his body to its limits in his sprint, throwing himself against the door and falling through it as a loud crash could be heard from behind him, into the unknown of the trial.

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The world briefly went black as they went to the other side and a part of him wondered if he was too late, if the countdown he’d seen was for completing the trial as a whole, not just entering its starting line, but that fear changed to another as he found himself somewhere different.

No solid ground beneath him, for a moment he hung suspended in a vast blue sky before he felt himself plummet. He didn’t know how high up they were, there was no land to be seen beneath him and it was possible he would be falling forever as he went, when suddenly he was assaulted by a gust of wind so powerful it knocked the air from his lungs as it struck.