Sage squatted next to Raana under a rocky shelf on the incline and peered around the corner of it, watching as Felix maneuvered himself blindly through a barrage of projectiles. The golem trudged its way towards them lethargically; if that was the extent of its movement, then perhaps it wasn’t that grand of a threat. If only that was the extent. 

Felix slid and swung himself around the corner, falling in place right next to Sage. 

“I’m sure this is clear to both of you, but we need to kill those guys or else we’re not getting out of here,” Raana said. 

Sage grabbed her arm, yanking her attention from her bow onto him. “Why exactly should I help the person that got us dragged into this? We could both just hand you over to them and say we had nothing to do with you.”

Raana smirked at his hostility and pried his hand off her arm with more strength than Sage expected. She came in close to his face and said, “Listen, pretty boy, you have two choices right now: help the one who isn’t out to kill you get rid of the ones who are, or, hand me over, and risk dying alongside me. What’s your pick?” 

“Why can’t we just leave? We can wait for these guys to grow tired of waiting for us and then return. There’s no need to fight,” Felix said. 

Raana snickered and shook her head. “The main trials start in six days. You’re telling me you want to potentially waste half of those on running away? Not happening. Fight with me or fail the pre-trials; it’s as simple as that.”

A tug on his jacket led Sage’s eyes to a conflicted Felix. His companion’s mind seemed in the same place as his own. 

With a sigh, Sage ran his hand through his hair. “We’ll help you. Dammit, it’s not as if we have another choice after what you said.” 

“That’s why I said it.” She smirked devilishly.

A sudden tremor in the ground ushered Raana to her feet. 

“I’ll handle the three people up there; you two take care of the golem. There’s no way you can get near them due to their projectiles, and I doubt either of you have ranged attacks, so that leaves only me”— she wiggled her bow in their face—“to take care of them.” 

“You have no arrows though, how do you expect to fight them?” Sage asked. 

Raana reached out in front of her, her hand disappearing into what was most likely her inventory. She pulled out a single, wooden arrow and laid it on top of her bow. 

“Why would I carry a bow if I didn’t have arrows? It’s too hard to roll and jump and flip when you have a quiver full of arrows attached to your hip or back,” she said, quickly peering over the lip afterward. She kissed her teeth. “I knew it, the golem’s gone. We need to act quickly; what classes are the two of you?”

The two boys glanced at each other and remained silent. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” 

As soon as the words left her mouth, the top of their tiny alcove erupted and from the explosion emerged the golem. With a better view of it now, Sage could make out that it was indeed a rock-shaped human. A little bulbous and asymmetrical— it also lacked proper hands and fingers— but the first thing one thought when gazing upon it was a boulder in the shape of a human with red dots in hollow sockets posing as eyes. 

The unexpected speed of the golems swinging arms gave the trio very little time to avoid the shattering of the ground. 

“Even if you’re both classless, you should be able to handle that thing. There’s no way he’s capable of summoning two golems, so you’ll only have to worry about the one,” Raana yelled while fleeing for coverage. 

As she ran, her hood falling to reveal her long, black hair, she raised her right arm in the air and shouted, “Light Orb!”, casting five, melon-sized balls of light to soar above them and illuminate the field below. 

Sage jumped back as he called Mura to his hand. The silver blade materialized from the blue light in an instant, the gleam of the blinding orbs above reflecting off its pure body. 

Four wave bursts and seven Thrusts— that’s all Sage had before he would be forced to fight regularly. Whether they would be enough or not would lay in how he avoided falling prey to his inexperience, which he so dreadfully was aware of. 

He approached the golem, taking a step forward with Mura at his side. Sparing a glance, he saw Felix to his left with his sword clenched between both his hands; if he was nervous, he didn’t show it. He stared the golem down fiercely. They would defeat it together. 

Taking another step, Sage felt a sensation to his right; soon after the sudden feeling, he saw, with peripheral view, an object flying his way. Looking at it would place him a step behind; he needed to swing immediately. 

His doubt only had a moment to afflict him, a second too late, before he swung Mura at the approaching rock. Was he seriously swinging a sword at it? She would break; Mura would snap! He wouldn’t let her. 

His left hand moved blindly fast, grabbing hold of her grip just below his right one. With firm hands, he dragged Mura diagonally at the rock, slicing it in two with such little resistance, it was as if it were made of styrofoam. 

The two pieces of the rock smashed into the ground behind him, scattering shards of rock across the incline. There was no time to revel in his elation. Two large, stone arms swung down at him from above, desiring to steal the triumph from him. 

Despite his timely reaction, Sage couldn’t avoid the attack. He instead brought Mura up above his head and laid her flat along his raised forearm. She wouldn’t break, Hera ensured him of that. 

There was a sound from his side, a yell, a shout, someone’s voice, and then there was simply pain. As he predicted, Mura did not shatter; violent tremors rattled through her upon colliding with the golem’s fist, yet her frame held true. Those same tremors, however, nearly shattered his forearm. Pained flared through his bones and threatened to crack under the impact. 

When his eyes cleared of forming tears, he saw not two, but only one of the golem’s arms on top of Mura. The other rested above him, laying on Felix’s crossed arms. 

“Damn that hurt,” Felix murmured. 

Sage watched Felix in confusion as he turned to him and said, “There’s no way you could’ve stopped this thing on your own, don’t be so reckless you idiot.”

The golem was pressing its arms down against them but soon stopped, retracting its arms and giving the two of them the chance to backstep away from it. When Felix lowered his arms, there was a trickle of blue mist trailing off of them. He had used a skill, one that he never mentioned having before. 

“I’m sure you have your questions, but save them for after we defeat this thing, yeah?” Felix said while keeping his eyes on the golem. 

He was right, they needed to focus on the golem first; Felix could explain his withheld information later. 

Enraged, the golem slammed its fists into the ground with more force than before. It then started to merge with the rocks beneath it, slowly lowering itself into them and disappearing. 

With bated breath, Sage frantically surveyed his surroundings, looking for where the monster would pop up next; the trembling of the ground directly beneath him, however, indicated that he wouldn’t need to look any further. 

Two hollowed sockets of rock with small red dots in their centers appeared below him. Like a calm before the storm, the tremors stopped, and from the ground emerged the golem; there was no time to react.