[It seems we are all in agreement,] Iisular said. [The children, despite the extremely young age, will be entering the program. They will be put through the normal initiation process and cast into the pit. We should have time to discuss how they are to be handled as we wait for them to climb out.]

[Assuming they do not climb out the same day we put them in there,] the woman who had been antagonistic so far says in a scoffing tone. It has been hard to get a read on this woman. It seems as though she probably has a rather high opinion of us, or at least me, but all of her words are degrading and antagonistic. I just hope it doesn't turn out she's taken some kind of interest in me. I do not want to have to deal with that kind of attention once I've passed this first test of theirs. Would she be more or less likely to be on my case if I deliberately go against this one-day expectation of hers?

The fellow earthing girl, who I have yet to learn the name of, scraped herself up off the floor sometime during this and came stalking over. She gave me a glare for a second, but got control of herself quickly before she began observing the important gnomes who had just declared our fate.

[Very well then. Kain, abu, escort them to the pit and hand them over to the keeper. Give them a message to remember these two in particular and inform us immediately whenever they crawl back out,] Iisular commanded.

[Yes, lord Iisular,] the two stepped up and responded in perfect unison before running over to retrieve the two of us. Kain was zeroing in on the girl with a determined look in his eye. I got the distinct impression he intended to make this escort experience rather unpleasant for her. That is, unless something was done to dissuade him.

[She's not going to fight!] I said, quickly jumping between her and Kain. [You do not need to be rough, she will come along... right?] I said, turning to her with an insistent look, pleading with my eyes for her to agree to what I'm saying.

"I don't need you speaking for me!" She growled, returning my gaze with one of irritation.

She's also using English again. Maybe that's for the best, a secret conversation might very well be for the best in this context.

"Hey, I don't know what they have going on here any more than you do, but it sounds like they're about to give us some latitude here," I said. "We don't want to struggle in vain. If you want to resist them in a way that will work, it would be a lot better to do it when they haven't got their constant scrutiny on us. We might even get a chance to escape from all this if we play it right!"

[Hey, what's that you're babbling?!] Kain demands.

The girl glares at me, but she doesn't seem to be arguing back any further. Instead, it seems to be that Kain guy who's had about enough of this.

[I would imagine that is likely Agarathian they are speaking,] the antagonistic woman said in her usual derisive tone. [It should be no surprise. It is these memories of the Agarath that ere the reason both of them are so advanced for the age they are. Why would you ever think it strange they would also remember the language spoken in the Agarath?]

[If the boy wants to keep her in line for you, let him have at it,] another one of the important gnomes said. [The job you were given was to escort them, not to menace them, Kain. You'd best be careful you don't create too much of a bad impression on these two. I am certain it will not be long before the both of them have passed you in rank. The girl already has a pretty bad assessment of you, I dare say the only hope you have of survival at this point may be to get the boy to align with you. He may settle her down for you and let this be seen as you simply being in a bad spot dealing with a bratty young girl,] he said in a scoffing tone that said he didn't believe a word of what he was saying would even be possible for this guy.

[Ahh... yes, of course!] Kain said, looking rather visibly rattled by what the superior gnome had just said to him. [Now then, would the two of you please follow me this way?] He gestured toward the 'door' we had entered through, or rather the only flat and unadorned surface in the entire room that otherwise sported the usual gnome decorative embellishments on every surface.

Not even the floor was spared in this room. The decorative design on the floor was somewhat marred by our recent game of Halisar, but I could see it rapidly being re-formed by the efforts of the men and women up in the viewing area. In fact, they even seemed to be making some kind of competition for dominance out of who would get to design what part of the field.

I looked back over my shoulder at Abu, who seemed thoroughly amused at the ordeal Kain was currently going through. I gave a meaningful glance to the girl who seemed to have calmed down to something of a light simmer and subtly gestured to follow. She responded to this by walking right past me and stomping off behind Kain, and I could not tell whether the scary look on her face was directed more toward me or the man who was now in the lead.

Kain led the efforts toward creating a new air pocket for us to travel in, pushing back the flat stone to form it into a concave half-sphere with a somewhat flattened bottom portion. The girl and I complied without protest when he gestured us in, and Abu took up the rear. With that, our semi-sphere pushed a little deeper into the hard earth and closed off behind us, and then my earth senses informed me that we were moving downward at an angle.

There was a heavy awkward silence in the earth sphere. This did not seem like the best possible start to the trial by fire initiation we were about to go through. Going down into this 'pit' with a pissed off companion I knew nothing about sounded like a recipe for disaster, but I was hoping maybe I could start earing some points with her to settle any enmity with her before it could start causing problems. Having her just be pissed at anything and everything including me would be incredibly counter-productive.

That's not to say everything was going bad here. Getting that unexpected aid form high places in regards to this Kain situation definitely smoothed over a lot, and they had also made some pretty convenient assumptions about the English me and her were using with each other. One member of our escort had also been recently berated in regards to causing trouble for us. Perhaps this will let me get away with a bit of conversation with the girl, try to mend some fences before we get dumped out into this 'pit.'

"Uhhh... so, what is your name anyway?" I asked the girl. "My name is Terlu, by the way."

She turned and looked at me with a harsh assessing look. "Terlu, huh? You're from Earth like me, right? Isn't that a name from this world?" She asked.

"Uhh... yeah. I figure, 'why not,' right?"

"Heh, well... whatever. I guess it's fine if you're good with that," she said. "As for me, I'm not using my name from this world. You can just call me Sam. That was my name back on Earth."

Sam, huh? Is that a boy's name or a girl's name? I know I've heard 'Sam' used as a shortened version of 'Samantha' before. Is it possible to be born a girl when you were a boy in your previous life?'

"So! What do you have planned?" Sam demanded.

"Uhh... what do you mean?" I asked.

"You said something about escaping and stuff. It sounded like you might have a plan or something. So, what's up?" She directed a glance up at Kain with an incredible amount of mockery in it, apparently very pleased with the idea she could have a conspiratorial conversation like this right under his nose without him understanding a word of it.

"Well, it's not exactly that I have a plan," I said. "We have no idea what's going on here at all, but I think we should have an opportunity to start planning and getting the lay of the land a lot better in this pit. I heard them talking about it a bit before Kain brought you in. This 'pit' they are bringing us to is some kind of standard initiation. I'm not sure what they told you, but this seems like some kind of military training camp or something. I mean, yeah, we're kids, but it seems their approach is something a lot like the Spartans back in ancient Greece did with their kids. I guess this pit is like the 'hell week' that they do with the Marines or something. It won't be pleasant, but I don't think it should be deadly or do any kind of irreparable damage."

"They also said something about us being 'the chosen of Iuutel.'"

"That's their god, right?" The girl interrupted. "I heard mention of that much when they had me up in that prison camp. They kept demanding I learn how to worship Iuutel. Forced me to pray a lot whenever I misbehaved."

I cringed when I heard her drop the term 'misbehave.'

"Uhh... yeah. You might not want to antagonize them too much," I said. "I don't know how real this is, but I heard something about them having some kind of ritual that will take away your will. I... uhh... I don't know if they told you, but we are actually meant to be some kind of high-class slaves. There's magic in this world, so it's really possible they might have magic like that, and if we're supposed to be slaves then it would make sense they'd use it."

"What the fuck?! If they've got some fucking zombie slave magic going, we've got to get out of here, like, right the fuck now!" She says, understandably riled up by what she just heard.

"Wow, wow!" I say, "Calm down a bit, they can't just use this ritual easily if what I heard is right! They won't use it unless you've proven to be really uncooperative. That's why I was trying to say you don't want to antagonize them! If they think you're a good earth-magic slave for them, they won't use this ritual and might give you less scrutiny. That will make it easier to escape once we find the opportunity for that."

[Hey! What's going on?!] Kain interrupts us, Sam's outburst having gotten his attention.

[Uhh... nothing! She just got angry when I said she shouldn't be angry at you,] I told him. He gave me a skeptical look, but of course I'm not going to tell him what's really going on here.

"Look, calm down, alright? What we need right now is information, and then a plan, and then we can get out of here. Alright?" I said.

She glared at me for several tense silent seconds. Kain and Abu also shifted uncomfortably off to the sides, and I actually felt our descent start to slow down a bit as they were too distracted to dedicate their attention to moving us.

"You don't get it, do you?!" She says. "If that ritual you're talking about is real, then I'm already fucked! Yeah, I'm not surprised they want to make slaves of us. That lines up perfectly with what a shit-hole this place is! I've hated every last thing around me here since the day I was reborn in this world, and I've made sure to let them know about it! Those guards up at the camp were all push-overs, but... damn it!"

"Hey!" I said, "It's probably not too late. You heard how agreeable those guys who watched us in the arena were, right? They said we were the 'chosen of Iuutel,' their god. I think they're giving us some kind of special treatment. And, hell! We're only like three years old or something here in this second life! They'll probably take it as you just being a fussy misbehaving toddler or something. There should still be plenty of time for you to change their mind about you!"

"Hmm... maybe," she said. "But... fuck!" She threw her hands out with an agitated grunt and then just went quiet, sulking but still steaming like a boiling pot. I decided it was probably best to just leave her alone with her thoughts for a bit.

We had started moving again, and what I assumed to be our destination came into range of my earth senses. It was some kind of massive open underground opening, and I really do mean massive. It was like my earth senses just suddenly cut off after a certain line, and there was nothing but air beyond that point.

It was a crevice of earth, and it was huge. Like, grand canyon huge. An entire underground grand canyon! And that's not all, I could also sense a huge rise in the amount of earth element around this canyon. Back in the Agarath, we would call rock like this 'Immutable stone.' It was the kind of stone that could not be simply passed through like the rest. We'd interact with it like anyone of this world would interact with normal stone.

'Immutable' was a little bit of a misnomer. We could still carve it and shape it. It's what we'd use to make our houses and such out of in the Agarath. But, it was not easy to do either, it required actual concentration and effort, and I am already pretty sure my ability to shape earth is not quite what it was back when my gnome side lived in the Agarath.

If this was 'the pit' they were talking about, it might be a lot harder to get by than I'd feared.