As Shammus and Bariton can finally see once again, the sand shifting beneath their feet wasn’t too much a welcome sight, nor was it a welcome site to be in. It was completely dark, the two only able to see from the very faint light that illuminates the entire area. It’s similar to the very same light with a crescent moon, and just like the previous field of stone, there was no moon in the sky. Or light. At all.

  “This sucks.” Bariton sits down in the sand, allowing his eyes time to adjust.

  “I don’t think this is the end of the bad.” Shammus responds, staring onwards, not wanting to stop but rather being forced to due to the inability to see.

  The two wait for what feels like hours, the void of the sky being littered by small lights. Certainly not stars, stars light up the sky better than these do. The sky is too dull for it to be stars, or a galaxy above their heads.

  The stars are blinking back, but they are very clearly not stars. The night sky is far more beautiful than this. It’s too bright for the light falling on the gray sands of this domain, but it’s too dark to be the real night sky. Even in cities where there’s almost always a little bit of light, just outside of it leaves the sky a breathless sight.

  The loss of the bright shine from whatever is up there between the stars, whatever is up there between the small dots of light, whatever is up there to be seen, gone. Bariton sighs as his eyes finally finish adjusting.

  Shammus lets out a sigh once Bariton stands, “Pathetic.”

  The singular word makes Bariton worried, the sound of footsteps in the ever shifting ground pushing the both of the two forward. The sand feels pretty rough, potentially glass with the coloring.

  But this all doesn’t seem to worry, well, Shammus whatsoever. Bariton is left following the tall man like a lost dog, trying to look for a way out. Shammus doesn’t speak, so neither does Bariton.

  But Bariton is left wondering if Shammus even knows where he’s going. Because there are no indicators of where they are, it’s too dark to see even 12 feet in front of you. The darkness is all encompassing, only the sand is clearly visible.

  Bariton notices that this isn’t a trial to prove loyalty or anything like that. It’s a trial devoid of meaning, just like most. It’ll end in some poorly designed combat that is way too easy for the group at hand because it’s balanced like a jenga tower.

  So Bariton does what Bariton does best, and walks off, leaving Shammus to deal with his side of things alone. Simple as that. Unfortunately, what Bariton doesn’t expect, that as soon as he got more than a few kilometers, he heard a voice within his own head.

  ‘Well, now that the bard is gone, I can actually think. The synced pairing of footsteps was making it hard to think… What may this trial be about?’

  ‘What? Why can I hear Shammus suddenly? Wait, is that my own thoughts sounding like their being projected-’

  ‘Why can I hear you again?’

  Damn it, Bariton’s worst fear, having his mind read, and Shammus’s shock in his voice, well not necessarily voice, but his thoughts aren’t making it nicer. The joy of having a mind able to be read like a book was ruined instantly by the exact same happening to him.

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  And now, he finds a pillar of stone, wielding a singular eyepatch. It would appear Shammus had found the same with how he’s narrating one to himself at the same time. It’s a much louder mindspace having two in one.

  He can thankfully still check it, which of course, mentally reading aloud is the same as reading aloud, and potentially worse. He knows this because unlike himself skimming it, Shammus is reading it word for word in his own mind.

  At least now he knows they are the exact same, just different in name and the name their linked to…

  ‘Fuck.’ They both collectively think as soon as they realize the name is the same as the one in the others hand. Bariton puts it on hesitantly, and he suddenly sees just slightly, like in the peripheral, the view of the other.

  It’s more blurry, and he can tell Shammus is thinking the same. Suddenly, the ground beneath only Bariton begins to shift, as he trips and falls.

  “Woah, hey!” Bariton feels those words slip out instinctively as he tumbles backwards, staring up at a giant tapestry. It portrays quite a lot, and the secondary noise of constant ‘what are you looking at? I don’t see anything there’ from Shammus doesn’t help.

  Bariton puts his own hand upon the tapestry. It seems to show… something involving a puzzle. An odd one. Now Shammus is looking at something separate. An odd room full of traps and a tile maze. The tiles are completely gray for Shammus, but Bariton sees a tapestry full of color.

  Shammus decided to toss off his eyepatch, as did Bariton. Bariton decided to toss it off because it’s useless to see what Shammus does. It’s far easier to describe what Bariton sees instead.

  Shammus steps forward, and immediately jumps back as the room goes not dark, but really bright with flames behind him. And they inch slightly forward. “Rude.”

  “Yeah, agreed. But how am I supposed to move through this?”

  “Hm, according to the tapestry, move two tiles to the East.”

  The sound of footsteps, wait, he no longer hears Shammus’s thoughts, only his voice. Interesting situation. After a few more seconds of just directions involving the four cardinal directions often, Bariton sees the door to the right open. Shammus clearly sees the same with his response.

  “Oh, thank god we made it. And there’s more.”

  Of course there is, it’s the tower. But Bariton walks forward, and of course it’s completely different. This time is appears Bariton himself is doing the physical part of the puzzle, and Shammus is stuck giving directions.

  It’s a miniscule cube, with lights on all areas. And it seems Shammus is just as confused as he is. Makes sense, he didn’t have an easy thing to work with, a blurb of colors with some vague description of which one does what per tile.

  It was a puzzle for both, less so for the physical side. It’s more logical on the speakers side then the listeners side. The listener needs only discern what each and every note really means.

  Eventually, the boredom consumed the two. The puzzles were too simplistic, the most notable of the remaining 20 or so puzzles were a rubix cube where only one of them could see the colors while the other had to solve it with their hands, and another whereas it was a color maze with just the rules being given to one of them and the colors being given to another, but all in all, it was boring after a while. Repetitive. But nice.

  It was actually a nice time all in all, to spend time with another person, without the constant fear of betrayal. It was still there- But it was also wasn’t as strong. It felt as if both of them could actually trust the other’s explanations, especially after the fifth puzzle. They were always able to explain it perfectly for the other, which is shocking.

  Neither of them felt this for ages… They always feared getting stabbed in the back with every other group, but these two felt genuine trust between one another. It was nice.