01: The Chosen Candidate

The assemblage knelt as Hsiang Tong, Grandmaster of the Morag Tong, entered the room and stood before us. An electric silence filled the air as the group waited in anticipation. Finally he gestured for one of the candidates to rise. Me.

"Your time has come"

With those words I left behind the life, friends and training that had made up my childhood and adolescence and stepped out into a larger world, via the tunnel that so many promising candidates had followed Hsiang into throughout the years. And not all had returned, it might be added. The Grandmaster walked with a confidence that I struggled to imitate as we started our descent toward the caverns below.

The air was cold and mineral scented, the passage pitch black and lit only by the starlight spell on Hsiang's ceremonial robes.

"After today you will no longer be a candidate. You will either survive the ritual below and become an initiate of the Morag Tong, or fail and die, possibly by my hand... though I am confident in your talents."

Without preamble he pressed an empty metal flask into my hand. It was undecorated, or too tarnished to tell. We walked downward in silence for a few more moments, a distant sound of water dripping onto stone. The air grew cooler. More silence. I couldn't ask any questions, or speak. Silence was part of the ritual, my part. I knew that much only.

"The ritual is simple enough. Soon we will arrive in a cavern, mostly filled with streams, pools, stone. When we reach the entrance on our side I will leave you, sealing the door behind. On the far side is the only exit. I will wait for you there."

"During your crossing you must choose a place to drink from the water using this flask. Upon drinking you must meditate, immediately, to protect your mind. Absolute concentration, without even an instants distraction, until the process is over. Those who have failed have lost part of their sanity, and I have never suffered such to leave with their life."

The sound of dripping water was louder now, the path growing less steep and the bare stone floor giving way to smoothed rock covered by a fine layer of gravel. As Hsiang finished speaking we reached a doorway cut into the rock. Evidently he had given this speech on sufficient occasions to master the timing of delivery perfectly, doubtless helped by the fact that no one had ever been able to ask any questions. He stood by the doorway and I saw no value in hesitating, walking past him without changing my pace. Ego, on the inside I was terrified. I never got a chance to see if my apparent show of confidence had impressed Master Hsiang, as he simply closed the door behind me. I say a door, from this side what had been an entrance felt like unbroken stone.

I stood in the darkness, listening to the sounds of water. Feeling the cold stone beneath my feet. Smelling the mineral smell. And seeing nothing. It seemed pitch black, but for the phantom pseudo-images the minds eye always creates in complete darkness. I sensed nothing living, and after a moment longer in thought I decided to just approach this as a task, pragmatically.

I raised my left arm, a gesture to summon a magical light source. During my training they had apparently purposefully neglected magical training, and from what I had been able to tell I had little talent for it anyway, but I knew at least this much.

Nothing happened. The cavern stayed stubbornly and rather intimidatingly dark. I experimented further without success. Magic didn't work here. I would have to do this the hard way, blind.