Level 1 Fallen

Starting from the second question, the Trial of Wisdom was not off to a promising start. After walking down the dimly lit corridor, we reached the next pedestal. Marron approached it, taking a few moments to translate the text before her expression stiffened. “In the third war of the Cromoran Conquest, what species attempted to assassinate Emperor Falgor? The Urbacks, the Kalnids, the Hoplons, or the Falns?”

Diane stepped forward at that, preparing to answer whatever Marron told her. She waited, only for Marron to remain silent, and then turned to look at her curiously. “Were you unable to find any information about this…?”

Marron gulped nervously. “None of the murals in the Trial of Resolve mentioned a Cromoran Conquest. And I’ve never found a book that mentioned it either.”

Diane’s brow twitched when she heard this, turning to regard the pedestal. “Which one says ‘Kalnids’?”

Marron blinked, pointing at one of the buttons. “This one, but why? Do you know the answer?”

“Not at all. However, there are only two reasons why they’d give you a question you wouldn’t have obtained the answer to in a previous trial. Either there was a book hidden in some library that you were meant to read that would lead you to the trials, or you are supposed to be able to solve the question through context clues.”

“Looking at the names of the four races, each one gives a different impression. Urbacks feel like they refer to a type of bear species, or ursa. Hoplons sound to me like a type of rabbit race. Falns sound similar to fauns, so I think they would be a type of deer or satyr race. Meanwhile, Kalnid makes me think arachnid, so I can only assume it is a type of insectoid race. Of the four options, only the Kalnid make sense as the type to perform an assassination tactic.”

“You’re basing your answer off of just that?” Marron asked in surprise.

“We don’t have anything else to base it off of. It’s either this or a one in four random chance. If I’m wrong, we can just guess next time,” Diane responded, reaching out and pressing the button. Immediately, she disappeared, and Bella appeared in her place.

Bella looked around, blinking in surprise. “I’m back? That didn’t take too long. Oh, and there is ambient lighting here now?” she looked towards the torches lighting up along the left path.

“Apparently, those torches light up the path we need to take after answering a question,” I explained through pursed lips. “And we’re in a bit of trouble. It looks like these questions are meant to test people’s knowledge on the Cromoran civilization’s history.”

Bella’s eyes widened slightly, looking at Marron. However, Marron simply shook her head, indicating that she didn’t know enough about the subject matter to be able to help beyond translating the questions.

Realizing this, the elf’s face dropped, her shoulders slumping. “So, we’re just going to brute force this, then? Drake, can you use your sponsorship points to find out where the books we’d need to study would be located?”

I hesitated at that, before letting out a small sigh and opening the system menu to find the sponsorship option. To my surprise, this question only required five points to answer.

Answer: All written records of the Cromoran Empire may be found in the village outside the Trial of Wisdom.

“That’s… not the answer that I was hoping for,” I muttered, looking at the others. “According to the system, all of the books would be in the village outside this dungeon. However, if those villagers are as hostile as the ones that Marron encountered outside the Trial of Resolve…”

“We’d only be able to get those books after we slaughtered a village of NPCs,” Bella finished my concern, her face losing a bit of color. “Given how they created a sphere of souls around the last dungeon, I would not be surprised if that was the way that they intended for someone to get the answers.”

“Do you think that we could just use your stealth to go in and steal all of the books? Then, we could bring them into the dungeon and have Marron reference them as a cheat sheet whenever we get to a question.”

I could only shake my head at that. “If the language weren’t encoded, that might work. However, it takes Marron time to convert the language in her head, and she can’t save the information in her system. We might end up waiting hours for each question as she parses through the books.”

Following what Diane had said before, about the person undergoing this trial having been meant to obtain the language in the system and be able to share it with others, the answer here was obvious. Those who were meant to already know the language were supposed to read through all of the books, save the information in their system, and then come here fully prepared. If they did that, these questions would become simple.

“Is it too late for us to go to that original ruin and have one of us learn the language?” I asked, looking over at Marron, whose tail lowered dejectedly.

“After I got the quest, there was some kind of mechanism that was triggered. The ruins sealed itself, and there was a giant hourglass counting down the time until it would reopen. I don’t know how much time it needs, but it wouldn’t be just a few days.”

With that sobering thought, the three of us walked down the path to the next pedestal. This time, the question asked for the name of the last Cromoran Emperor. There were no context clues that we could make out between the four options, so Bella chose one at random, disappearing. Thankfully, Diane did appear in her place, looking back at us.

“So, what decision did you guys reach?” she asked, seemingly having expected us to discuss the problem.

I explained how we had used the sponsorship points to find the location of the books, as well as our theories that followed. However, Diane just tilted her head curiously. “Why don’t you just go to the Sage’s Sanctum? All written books should be located there, unless they are hidden in a special dungeon. However, if the books we need are really outside in the village, then that means that they should have copies in the sanctum.”

“The Sage’s Sanctum?” Marron asked in confusion, having obviously never heard of this wandering dungeon. When Diane explained the dungeon’s theme to her, her eyes went wide. “There’s a dungeon that is capable of recording all worldly knowledge? That is an archaeologist’s dream! All of the reference materials we could ever need in one place.”

Diane’s suggestion made sense. Too much sense, really. I had been so focused on the original intent of the trial and how to work within its rules that I completely forgot that we had access to such a resource. “Shall we fail the next few questions to all get sent back together?”

Diane nodded her head in agreement, and we walked down the path again. When we reached the next pedestal, she didn’t even wait for Marron to read off the question, pressing one of the buttons at random. This time, Bella didn’t appear in her place, indicating that she had answered the previous question wrong.

Next was my turn. Following Diane’s lead, I answered the next question without waiting for a translation. As soon as I did, I found myself frozen in place, locked within a pitch black void. There was nothing to see or hear from my surroundings, and I was unable to even activate any of my skills. I could activate my system menu, but there was little that would help me. Even that, I assumed, was just to give players a way to log off if they were stuck in this void.

A few minutes later, there was a brief crushing force that surrounded me. The next thing I knew, I was back in Fallcry with Marron, Bella, and Diane. Bella looked at the four of us with a bitter smile. “Shall we go back for round two, then?” she asked, but Diane shook her head.

“We’re going to the Sanctum,” Diane reported, and Bella froze. After a moment, her expression lit up.

“Right, that place was an option!” she smiled brightly, clearly happy that we wouldn’t be spending the next few weeks brute forcing the world’s most unfair history test.

I held out my hands, and everyone gathered around. Once we were all touching, I teleported us to the sanctum dungeon. By now, the scholars here were no longer surprised by my method of entering, barely giving us a second glance. Only one approached us after noticing the unfamiliar face we brought with us.

“Excuse me, patron, but even if you possess a method to bypass our restrictions, we ask that you not bring untested individuals in with such a manner.” He looked at Marron as he spoke, a hint of caution in his tone.

“My apologies. However, we did not have time to try to find the proper entrance again,” I explained, gesturing to Marron. “She is a scholar researching ancient civilizations. Right now, we’re looking for information on the Cromoran people. Do you happen to have any reference books available?”

Diane quickly stepped in to add, “If you have a primer for the language, that would also be a big help.”

When he heard that Marron was a historian, the scholar’s attitude seemed to brighten. “Is that so? Let’s see… ancient civilizations… you’ll be wanting the seventh floor, third aisle from the stairs to the left, and second right. That will take you to our Lost Civilizations section. As for language primers, I’m afraid we don’t have anything of that sort. There is very little overlap between the times of lost languages and the universal tongue, and none using the universal tongue can properly read the lost language. As such, no primer was ever written.”

“Would it be fine for me to make one, then?” Marron asked, lifting a hand. “I can read the language myself with some effort, but I’d like to be able to teach them, too.”

“You want to add a new book to the library?” the scholar asked happily. “Of course. I will have a fresh book and pen brought to your table. We are always happy to receive literary contributions.”

Seeing how quickly the scholar’s mood shifted when facing Marron, I couldn’t help but think about Karlson. Given how much he loved reading, he was likely still immersed in the true headquarters of the sanctum.

“Let’s find a few books first,” Diane said, already moving towards the stairs. “It’ll be easier for her to make the primer if she has an example of the language in front of her.”

With that in mind, we followed the directions that we had been given by the scholar, soon arriving at a more dusty section of the library. Not only was this section hidden out of the way, but it seemed like even the scholars only rarely visited. If none of them can read the language, I guess the questions in these books wouldn’t appear in the sanctum’s tests either.

As Marron scanned the shelves, her brow twitched. “Some of these appear to be from other civilizations. I don’t recognize these symbols… they’re all mixed together.”

After saying that, Marron began pulling books from the shelves, seemingly at random. Each time she pulled out a book, she set it carefully on the floor in a growing pile. Over the course of half an hour, she made her rounds through the entire section, piling up three stacks of books that were each as tall as I was.

“These are all the Cromoran books,” she reported with a satisfied nod. “This should help them organize their shelves a bit, if they read the primer themselves once I finish.”

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