Chapter 74

Ben stopped in his tracks. “Did you hear that?”“I think so.” She said, easing his mind. At the very least it wasn’t another case of only him noticing something. “What are we supposed to do about this though?”

“I mean, I’d think we go check it out? Sounds like it’s the way we’re going anyway.” They hadn’t stopped moving when they heard the cry for help so they were slowly getting closer anyway.

“Yeah we’ll check it out, I more meant someone’s yelling for help. Do we run and hurry or not? I don’t exactly know what’s happening so getting there quickly might be important, but on the other hand, maybe that’s a trap to distract us and so we'll fall into a pit and die.”

He thought for a moment. “I mean I really hope your god’s a bit more creative than to do death pits twice, but you’re right, what do you want to do?”

As they spoke their speed had increased slightly and the yelling had continued. Something about it had nagged at Ben, making him want to rush to it more than he thought he would considering it was part of the trial. He reached to connect to a tree to see if that shook the feeling but it didn't help, either the feeling was actually coming from himself or the trial had compensated for his ability, he didn’t know how adaptable it was. Still, he was able to ignore it for now and waited for Thera to decide. The trial was more important for her than it was for him after all.

She hesitated for a minute before making her choice. “I don’t want to learn that this part is about protecting someone only to find out we failed before we even make it to them. Come on, let's hurry.”

It was good enough for him, although he did make use of his now expanded mind as they ran to try and watch out for anything that may show up on the path, not that he was sure it would help, all the while listening to the calls growing closer. It was a higher voice, but distinctly male. Presumably young. Something about it gnawed at his mind, he was growing more and more sure he knew the voice, he just couldn’t place it.

They went with as much haste as they could muster, Ben letting the feeling take over and running as hard as any time his life depended on it, lungs aching and legs pounding.

Somehow he was even pulling ahead of Thera, something she would have been more concerned about if she took the time to notice. She may have been shorter than him, but her agility stat was much higher; it should have given her an edge in overtaking him.

Perhaps if she had paid more attention she would have noticed she was under the effect of a minor debuff, and that Ben was slightly buffed, not enough to be too noticeable, especially when one was rushing, but enough to make the difference and slowly split them up as he pulled ahead.

If Ben was less distracted he may have slowed down himself to help them stick together, but the nagging feeling in his mind was slowly turning to one of familiarity. He recognized the voice, he just couldn't place how. It definitely wasn't Karly or Glob, that was for sure, but why would anyone else be in the woods of the trial?

When he came to a clearing in the woods he saw the figure of a child, clawing at the ground as a vine that had wrapped around them seemed to pull them into a waiting pit. He thought to himself before he was going to run towards them to help when he heard a dull thud from behind him and Thera scream.

He looked back and whatever had snared the child had gotten her too, a long thick vine had coiled around her and started to pull her to her own endless hole in the ground. He didn't understand what this part of the trial was meant to accomplish, but the choice was easy for him, he wasn't going to hesitate to save Thera. At least he wasn't until the kid called his name.

"Ben? Ben help me! Please I'm scared what's happening?"

He felt his blood run cold and turned to look again, seeing a face raised from the ground to scream and cry for him while tiny hands desperately clawed at the earth, trying to get a handhold to keep them from being pulled farther, but without any luck.

He knew that face. He knew the voice too and had to ask himself how he could have not been able to recognize it before. Both belonged to someone he knew couldn’t be in this world, someone he wanted to see again so desperately at times it hurt to think about. His little brother Mark.

It was enough to make him hesitate as his newly augmented mind went into overdrive. For just a moment he believed it, but he knew it couldn't actually be his brother. He didn't know if any of these trials would be able to kidnap someone outside of them, but in the case of his younger brother it wouldn't be reaching across the planet but a universe. His body would have to be remade from the ground up the same as his own was in order to be able to exist in the world at all, a task that was supposedly incredibly difficult even for the gods. There was no way it had been done for a single god’s trial.

Ben knew with every fiber of his being it wasn't his brother, but that didn't stop his mind from asking what if?

He stood there for precious moments as Thera yelled for his help and his brother screamed and cried, begging for Ben to save him. He felt sick to his stomach as he turned around and ran to Thera, ignoring the cries coming from behind him.

In the time he'd wasted she'd gotten to the edge of the pit, unable to escape the vine that snared her. Only by virtue of the strength he'd managed to grow since working at a forge was he able to fight against it, pulling with all of his might against the force of the thing, trying to close his mind off from the screams behind him.

With every inch he was able to pull her back it ate at his heart more, having to push out such a familiar voice that desperately needed his help so he could focus on saving his friend, until finally, thankfully, the vine seemed to give up. Thera was free, and the forest was silent again.

He looked back, now that she was out of danger, and there was nothing behind him. That pit was gone, and so was his Mark. With that bit of peril seemingly done, he walked over to the nearest tree he could find, fell to his knees, and started vomiting against it.

Once he’d emptied his stomach of everything it contained he realised that Thera had come up behind him at some point and was rubbing his back. He didn't know what to say, so instead of anything he flopped down into the dirt and breathed, trying to clear his head.

He asked, forgetting for a moment that his god wouldn't be able to answer him, and finished his thought aloud. "Cause if you have any fucked up shit like that in it then we're going to have issues."

Thera was sitting beside him keeping watch and seemed to take his sudden statement as a sign to speak to him.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She moved beside him and gently ran her fingers through his hair while he laid on the ground, waiting for him to open up.

He didn’t want to talk. He was too filled with anger, with sadness and guilt and so much more. Even if he knew it wasn’t real, watching the family he felt he’d abandoned on Earth by dying calling for help had been too much. But he owed her an explanation as to why he hesitated to save her, so he rolled over to face her, though still not getting up. "That was my little brother. I mean it couldn't have been my actual brother, I know that. There's no way the gods exerted the sort of effort it would take to bring him here just for a trial where he would be killed off in front of me, but that felt just a little too real. Sorry I hesitated back there."

"Don't be, I knew there must have been a reason. Just take it easy, we'll rest here for a while." She hadn’t gotten a good look at the boy when she had been dragged to the ground, and at the time her mind had been more focused on thoughts of escaping the vine that snared her, but after it had been obvious it must have been someone close to Ben. She just hadn’t expected the trial to show him the family he knew he would never see again.

He gave a silent nod in agreement, he needed a few minutes at least, preferably more. At the very least it didn't seem like they would encounter more like that considering how the last bit of the trial had gone down. Finish the thing it wanted you to do and then move on to the next bit; he just didn't get the point of it all. Maybe it would have made more sense to him if he'd spent some time looking into Anailia herself given that it was her trial and all, but with everything else it slipped his mind. If he was ever going to do something ridiculous like agree to one of these trials again he wouldn't make the same mistake.

Though it wasn’t exactly too late. There was still more of the trial and he had a worshipper there with him,

“He Thera, tell me a bit about your god.”