Catalyst

Am I really doing this? Xenron thought, passing training rooms on either side as he continued down the 12th floor’s granite hall. The steady weight of his pack and the knife on his hip answered that for him easily. I suppose I am.

Xenron turned into the last door on the right, and in front of him opened a room covered with mats. A mirror took up most of the far wall, but between the two sides were subtle seams where pieces of the floor fit together. There was a weapon rack on the left wall, and the rear wall seemed to house various other equipment. But Xenron knew the room’s relatively simple appearance said nothing of the many forms it would take at the snap of Bruce’s fingers. The currently empty space in front of the mirror stretched out for dozens of meters, and the ceiling, making the walk to Bruce seem ominous. Bruce had told him to meet in this time and place - he supposed he would be meeting him early before a training section to discuss details.

“Prince Xenron,” Bruce said, dipping his head slightly. “Are you certain about this course? I am not an unreasonable man. If you have had second thoughts, I will not stop you from leaving - or speak any further of this.”

Xenron had thought about this possibility - too many times. There was a possibility, even, that Bruce would think better of inviting Xenron and offer clemency to Ken as a sign of goodwill. He had talked through this, amongst many possibilities, with Leo.

You made a dangerous choice, Leo had said. But there’s a chance this will make you strong. Really, you needn’t chastise yourself so much. Many of the choices you have are dangerous. This “Survival Gauntlet” is dangerous. I honestly don’t like it one bit - but it’s not up to me. All you can do is make the choice that can best live with.

Bruce hadn’t said anything about Kenneth just now. That made Xenron’s choice simple, even if it wasn’t easy.

“I want to learn from you,” Xenron said as firmly as he could make himself.

“You’ll need to brace yourself. My training is meant to make warriors out of children. That doesn't happen without pain.”

“I-I… I can handle pain. What I can’t take any more of… is regret,” Xenron said, taking time to steady himself as he needed to.

Bruce looked at the prince intently for several long seconds, and he looked away under the weight of the gaze before meeting it again. It felt like a test, but Xenron didn’t have any more to say, so he just stared back. Finally, Bruce closed his eyes for a moment and nodded.

“You should know,” Xenron jumped in, knowing there would be no convenient time to say this, “T-that I’m not as powerful as your students. Not even close. I… can’t use my own mana yet.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed, but the delay wasn’t as long this time. “You are not just saying this to get me to take it easy on you?”

“I don’t want you to take it easy on me,” Xenron said. That wasn’t entirely true, but it was close enough. “I just want you to know that I won’t be able to participate in any magical exercises.”

“That’s not the important part,” Bruce said, rolling his neck to either side as if weighing. “There are alternate exercises for magical drills when we do run them, and that’s not often for me. But the physical training is calibrated to be difficult for the best young prospects. While it was before my time, people have died in this very room. Not in sparring - they were just too proud to back down from a challenge beyond them.”

A dangerous choice, Xenron thought. Leo had given Xenron a similar answer, so at least he wasn’t surprised. He also told Xenron that Bruce was likely to test Xenron. The choice was made. He would withdraw before dying of exhaustion, he felt sure. Still…

“All the same, I’d like to try.”

Bruce gave a long shrug. “Fine,” he said, and then began to walk to the side of the room, leaving Xenron standing awkwardly at attention. He grabbed a strangely placed vertical bar with one hand. Then, with a snap of his fingers, Bruce sent a chilling wave through the room. Bruce’s mana rattled Xenron’s insides in a way not quite physical, but more importantly, the room responded right away. Without any warning, Xenron was falling towards the back of the room. Nausea and terror struck immediately as gravity turned sideways. Move. Hand flashing, he fumbled for the knife at his hip. He had already fallen far once it was free, and he dug it into the mat in front of, no, below him. He slowed. Not fast enough. He pressed his nails, his body, his knees against the mat, feeling them slip and burn. He hit the bottom - a now-empty back wall - with a loud bumping sound, and rubbed painfully at his tailbone. Nothing broken, just some scrapes and bruises… now that he had the time to consider, he looked to where Bruce had started hanging from the bar he’d gripped, his face tightened - but Xenron didn’t think it was from any effort. Bruce seemed gravely serious.

“I see you’ve survived the crash landing, recruit,” Bruce said, although the sound came in a static-filled hum from all around Xenron. He’s simulating bad comms, Xenron realized. Leo had warned him that he might be tested, but still - he was amazed as the mats slid out into the abyss before him, the panels reconfiguring into a rugged stone wall seamlessly. Cold air blew in from somewhere, and… is that snow?

“I see you’re survived the crash landing, recruit,” Bruce repeated. “What is your status?”

“Good enough sir,” Xenron said, his lessons finally snapping into place. “Minor injuries, nothing to slow me. I’m at the bottom of an unfamiliar cliff face, and…” with a quick survey, Xenron saw that the doors to the room had also disappeared somewhere. Whatever was next, the only way to go seemed ‘up’.

“Good, then,” Bruce said. “We have a crucial asset stranded at the top of the mountain. Weather conditions make it impossible to approach from the air - for now. We need you to get up there and secure the asset. You have 24 hours. Past that time, the storm will be too intense to make a descent.”

Xenron stared at the wall, still bewildered. Already, the cold was getting to him. “Understood,” he said automatically, then dug in his pack. He had another couple of light layers in there, and donned them with the same automatic motions. His active brain was thinking strategy.

The wall went up as far as the room’s space allowed, but he could see up to a peak that seemed far higher. Illusion magic, Xenron though, or else just tech. Once I get to the top, I’m sure the room will adjust itself to reset me to the bottom, until I get to the “top” of the mountain, fixing the visuals accordingly. Putting on thick gloves and an extra couple of layers, Xenron then closed his pack and approached the wall. He had his initial pack picked out - unlike true mountain climbing, something he’d have significant trouble with, the stone here bulged in very convenient places for his hands and feet. He could spot them with a little study, and after a few minutes, he had a route picked out. Xenron didn’t have a proper set of climbing gear - no crampons to dig into the ice, no carabiners or spikes to secure a rope. He had only his own strength against the wall; but that was probably what the test intended.

Xenron found handholds for stability, using his stronger legs to push himself up. He’d probably need his upper body strength eventually, and he did his best to conserve it. One good push deserved another, and before he knew it he had made his way far up the wall. Boots kicked away ice and wedged themselves in crevices as the cold made itself known to Xenron. Eventually, something would give. He would fail to get his boot in, or out. He would fall. Don’t look down. Xenron moved one arm or leg at a time, keeping three points of contact. He was weak, but he was still Xexen. His body weight wasn’t terribly heavy to him.

But time changed that. He made good progress, but he could feel his movements getting heavier. Here he reached out his hand and couldn’t quite get the handhold - he overextended or adjusted his footholds to manage it. There his fingers were barely able to cling to a shallow handhold. The strain added up as he made progress. His lack of pride made him put the question off, but eventually, he was certain that he had climbed the height of the room at least once. From a quick look around, squinting at where wall became illusion, he judged himself to be a little over a third of the way up. As he ascended a short way further, he noticed it. The slow, almost imperceptible movement. He was being reset towards the midpoint of the wall’s considerable height continuously. This meant it would be hard to gauge his progress, and also that a fall at any time would be dangerous. Xenron shivered harder than he had been. Grinding his teeth, he forced himself to focus. There was a shelf he could take a breather on currently at the top of the wall. He’d have to climb a bit sideways to get there, but…

He made it, leaping the last of the distance sideways. Falling might be the better word for it, and only the necessity of getting out of the snow raised Xenron again. Still breathing hard, he sought his path up. He had made it maybe halfway. His phone projected a hardlight display - about an hour had passed. Time wasn’t going to be the issue. But that wasn’t going to be a resource anymore, he realized, as the display cut out. The cold must have drained his phone to nothing. Instantly, Xenron reeled from the sense of isolation. He sought comfort by looking for Bruce - he wasn’t anywhere Xenron would see from his snow-covered ledge. Even the former semblance of a room with a gimmick was gone. He could no longer visually discern that the snowstorm he saw opposite the rock face was some kind of display - and he could not discern the floor at the bottom of the rock face, if there even was one. Worst of all, as he panned his gaze, it landed on a man face down in the snow, wearing light armor, with limbs twisted the wrong ways. A corpse. It was enough to make Xenron question reality, and he felt his breaths quicken.

‘Get to know all the wonderful people in the KEY Program.’ This is what they do, the thought came to Xenron. They were those people who did not balk at any challenge, any terror. That would be the first on the battlefield and the last to leave. He slapped his legs, as if to fill them with hot blood, dusting off some snow while he was at it. He wasn’t being abandoned, only tested. He would end this quickly, before hypothermia could set in.

Analyzing the wall ahead, it was more wild than what Xenron had faced to this point. More untamed. There weren’t many clear handholds, and he didn’t see an obvious way up. He had rope in his pack, but nothing to secure it from a distance. He didn’t think he’d be climbing a mountain, and even Leo hadn’t foreseen the possibility.

Holding back panic, Xenron decided he needed to examine the ledge he stood on. There was little but snow and the body itself. The snow was oddly piled in one place towards the side of the ledge, but he didn’t have the time to go digging in the snow. Reluctantly, Xenron resolved to search the body. Fortunately, the hologram surrounding a mannequin flickered as he interacted with it, making the scene less gruesome. He fished into the bloodied clothes, finding a few things. The body’s boots were no better than Xenron’s. His rifle wouldn’t be any use to Xenron, but he did pocket the handgun, assuring the safety was on for the time being. Alongside that, he put a gas mask and sonic dart launcher into his pack. Sonic darts could anchor themselves in solid stone with a cord attached, making it far easier for the user to climb. The rub? It was jammed, or broken, or both. Xenron wasn’t a mechanic. Still, he thought the tech was worth the weight in case he figured something out later. He left the man his firestarters and other survival gear - it wouldn’t be feasible to camp in these conditions.

Regardless, Xenron didn’t find anything that would help him ascend on the body. He felt bad stealing from the dead for nothing, even in a simulation, but he knew time was a luxury he didn’t have. Focusing intently on the wall, he noticed something he’d overlooked before. There were places that the wall rounded noticeably. There weren’t conventional handholds, but looked like something he’d seen in training rooms before. There was a crevice in the wall running up a long way, also, but it was too thin to even get a finger into. Taking a deep breath, Xenron accepted his only way forward.

His feet dug into the rock below, Xenron’s hands cupped the rock where it rounded outward. Pressing them into the wall, he relied on sheer friction to pull himself up. It worked - one hand higher, adjust his feet, then move his other hand to the same handhold. He didn’t often have the luxury of spreading out as he’d like to - each hold was precious, and he pushed himself higher, always fervently seeking the next hold. His tempo was quick, especially once he sighted his next rest spot. Xenron would not freeze on this mountain.

As he made it past the wall’s first challenge, he found a section without any scarcity of normal holds - sufficient bulges in the wall to get his fingers around and pull himself up. But as he ascended, fingers became single finger joints, and then fingertips. The howling wind whipped Xenron’s hood back, and his hair billowed freely in the wind. It might have been thrilling if the cold wasn’t already seizing his fingers and toes, making them stiffer. If the holds get any shallower, he worried, I won’t be able to get anywhere. Not a minute later he cursed himself for it as the outcroppings disappeared almost entirely. There were some real holds, maybe - if he jumped between each one. It was obviously beyond him.

His arms burned more and more as he lingered for a moment to get his bearings. He let his left arm dangle almost involuntarily, shaking it out in a panic. Slowly, as he kept his tentative balance, he could feel the burning start to subside. He did the same with the right, taking a breath to steady himself. He couldn’t stay there forever. As he scanned his surroundings, he was still running parallel to the crack continuing up the wall. There weren’t a lot more handholds that way, but still…

Xenron reached his right hand, then foot, towards the crack, climbing sideways until it was in line with his right shoulder. Tentatively, he stuck his hand into the crack. It fit, but not by too much. When he made a fist, his hand felt pressured, almost stuck. If not for his gloves, this would shred the hand. Grateful once again to Leo, he used his wedged hand as an anchor as he pulled himself up, left hand probing for the sparse handholds. When he released his right hand from the fist and then freed it, he pushed it in higher up, then made the fist again. It was slow going, but bit by bit, he pulled himself up the crack.

He got just enough momentum to be shocked by a shrieking sound - too close to ignore. His head snapped to the right, where a bat flew at him. Far beyond its natural habitat, the signs of magical adaptation were obvious as its wings were coated in frost. Xenron struggled in a panic, trying to get his hand free to defend himself. The bat got to him at the same time, fangs sinking into his right arm and spreading a numbing chill through it. Xenron forced the stiff limb to move, but in his flailing he pulled his hand free without the glove. He drew his knife and hacked at the creature, drawing coolant-blue blood from the wing. The flesh was tough and laced with hard frost, so it wasn’t a critical wound. Shrieking, the bat circled away from the blade, landing on Xenron’s left hand to bite it. At the same time, numbness dropped the knife from Xenron’s bare right hand, the cold sinking in deeper.

Dread threatened to overcome Xenron. Dread, but at the same time, something else.

The fury of a man trying to survive.

Letting out a feral yell, he hyper-extended his feet to gain a few inches and bit into the bat’s fluttering wing. The icy flesh was sharp in his mouth and drew hot blood, but this seemed to startle the beast. At the same time, Xenron forced his right arm to move. In a combat daze, he managed to seize the pistol - but he couldn’t get the safety off. Plan B. Just as fast, he adjusted, using the gun as an improvised club. He hit the beast again and again until the frost coating it shattered, and still more. Still more. Fangs had made his left hand stiff, but something like rigor mortis kept it clinging to the stone now. And as the creature itself went stiff and fell into the abyss, Xenron had a moment to catch his breath.

His left hand was cold, horribly cold - but it wasn’t getting worse, at least for the time being, as his body desperately pumped what heat it could to the extremity. Xexen bodies didn’t often get frostbite - on an evolutionary level, his body knew that either he’d either use his digits to make his way through this danger, or he would die. His right was in much the same state. Some part of Xenron knew it was time to concede. Going further was dangerous. But inside, he still raged. He wouldn’t be beaten by this mountain. He reached up, his right hand in the crack, and pulled himself up with his feet and that hand. He sought a handhold for his left hand - one a good distance away. But when he had fully pulled himself up, his feet on the highest footholds available, he found the hold still a full extra arm’s length away. He strained and stretched for it. Still, no luck. This was his only way forward. The handhold on his right side was too far up for his feet to get to, and couldn’t get him up any further than the crack. He pushed his hand up as far as he could get it in the crack - it was getting to be too wide for him to get any friction with his jammed-in fist, and the slipping had already cut his hand. Just a little more. Overextending, his arm gripped the rock at the end of its range. He had it - or so he thought. His hands were slick with melted snow and ice, and the overextended grip wasn’t enough to stabilize. He lost his focus on his right hand - and as high as it was, the hand no longer supported him the moment he relaxed the fist even slightly. As it dropped out of the crack, the full weight of his body hit his unsteady grip - his fingers held just a moment before slipping. This left him flailing as he sailed towards the ground below.