Chapter 35: Blood and Sacrifice

*Date: 33,480 First Quarter - First Dungeon - Location unknown*

Aris limped forward, boots squelching on damp stone. The slime from the slug creatures still clung to his sleeves and burned faintly where acid had splashed. Every step hurt. His shoulder ached from swinging the root like a club, and the Light Missile spell still tingled behind his eyes like a headache waiting to break.

"This is supposed to be easy?" he muttered, dragging a hand along the wall to steady himself. "If this is the first trial, then the others must be godsdamned death traps filled with monsters that could eat me whole."

"Is this so hard for me because I am level 1?" he asked himself, the question echoing in the empty tunnel.

The passage narrowed, then opened into a chamber that made him freeze in the threshold. Unlike the dripping caverns behind, this place was eerily silent. The stone was smooth, almost polished to a mirror shine. No moss, no fungi, just faint blue light glowing from runes carved high on an archway that seemed to pulse with their own internal rhythm.

At the center of the room stood three stone slabs arranged in a triangle. On each lay the figure of a person, their arms folded across their chests as if in eternal sleep. Their skin was pale, too pale, and lines of glowing runes traced across their foreheads and down their arms like veins of light. They looked unsettlingly real not like statues, not like magical constructs, but like actual people frozen mid-dream. A human, a fae, and a halfling. He was sure he'd seen them somewhere before but couldn't place where.

Aris's stomach turned with revulsion. "Where did they find people to lie here?" he asked himself, dread creeping up his spine.

Across the room was a sealed door, a great block of stone with a glowing sigil pulsing faintly in its center like a heartbeat.

In front of the slabs stood a waist-high pedestal with a tablet of stone. The letters on it pulsed the same eerie blue color as the runes.

He read aloud, his voice echoing in the chamber:

"Only those who share their lifeblood may pass.

Suffer for the dreamers, and they shall wake.

Without sacrifice, the way is sealed."

He first tried a healing touch on the resting bodies, pressing his palm against each one and channeling what little magical energy he had left. Nothing happened no response, no change.

Then he tried Cure Disease, thinking perhaps they were afflicted with some magical ailment. The spell sparked weakly but had no effect on them whatsoever.

Aris stared at the tablet in growing horror. "You've got to be kidding me."

Three pedestals stood before the slabs, each with a shallow bowl carved into its surface. He didn't need divine inspiration to understand what was required. Blood. His blood.

His first thought was to wait it out, to find another way. But the sealed door left no choice. This was the only path forward.

Hands trembling, he smacked his hand against the edge of the first pedestal. It bruised but didn't draw any blood.

But the rune flared anyway. Aris became sure it needed actual blood. He hit the sharp edge harder, cutting his hand. The rune flared brighter and seemed to swallow the blood that dripped into the bowl.

The figure on the first slab jerked as if shocked by lightning. Their chest heaved and they sat up, coughing violently. A greenish vapor burst from their mouth, rolling across the chamber in a nauseous wave.

Aris choked, gagging as the stench hit his nose like a physical blow. His knees buckled, his vision swam with dark spots. He clutched at his stomach as dizziness swept through him in waves.

Instinct screamed at him to cast something. He slapped his palm against his chest. "Healing Touch!"

Warmth flickered through his body, pushing back some of the nausea. His head cleared a little, but the sickness didn't fully leave. It clung like a damp fog inside his lungs, making every breath taste of decay.

"Cure Disease!" he gasped, pressing his hands together. The words of the incantation tasted sour on his tongue. The spell sparked weakly, but nothing happened. The sickness lingered, stronger than before.

Aris groaned with understanding. "Not a real disease. Just another Academy trick."

He staggered back, glaring at the tablet with growing anger. One done. Two more to go. He readied another Healing Touch, knowing he'd need it.

His hand shook as he cut it again, deeper this time. Blood dripped into the second bowl in steady drops.

The second figure stirred, sat up, and coughed with the sound of grinding bones. Another choking cloud erupted - this time stronger, more violent. The sickness washed over him in a suffocating wave. His knees buckled, bile rose in his throat, and he nearly collapsed on the stone floor.

Desperately, he forced out another Healing Touch. His hands glowed weakly, the light barely visible. The pain eased slightly, but not enough. His skin was clammy, his heartbeat thundered in his ears. He pressed his bleeding hand to his tunic to stop the flow, but red was spreading fast across the fabric.

"This... is insane," he whispered hoarsely. "Not fighting. Not puzzles. Just pain. They want us to bleed ourselves to death."

He had to stop himself from laughing bitterly. It was all so wrong, so twisted.

Still, the last pedestal remained. He readied another Healing Touch, knowing this would be the worst yet.

He raised his hand one final time. [Bzzt!] The familiar interference flashed across his vision. He gained something, but couldn't worry about that now. His vision blurred. His hand trembled so much he nearly dropped it. He pressed the edge against his arm this time, making a deeper cut. Thick blood welled up and fell into the third bowl in heavy drops.

The last sleeper rose, coughing with a sound like bones grinding against stone. The final wave of sickness hit him like a physical blow. It was crushing, suffocating. Aris dropped to his knees, head spinning, body convulsing with nausea. He clawed at the ground, fighting to stay conscious.

"Don't... black out," he muttered through gritted teeth. He pressed his hand to his chest with desperate strength. "Healing... Touch!"

Light burst from his palm, brighter than before, spilling through his veins like liquid starlight. The sickness hissed and faded, leaving him sprawled on the cold stone, chest heaving.

When he looked up, the three sleepers were glowing. Their forms dissolved into motes of light, drifting upward until they vanished into the ceiling like released souls. The sigil on the door pulsed once, then shattered with the sound of breaking glass. With a heavy grinding sound, the stone shifted aside.

The way forward was open.

Aris didn't move. He lay on the floor, bleeding, sweat-drenched, laughing weakly.

"Suffer first. Then obey. Then be rewarded. That's the Chalice way, isn't it?" he muttered.

Minutes passed before he finally pushed himself up, clutching his side. His cuts were shallow, but his strength was gone. He sat against one of the empty slabs until his breathing steadied, then staggered toward the door.

But when the exit yawned before him, he stopped. Something gnawed at his gut. Lyra's words from last night echoing in his memory. "Spy. Look where you shouldn't. That's how you'll survive."

He turned back.

The chamber was empty now, the slabs bare. But the trial felt like a lie, a performance. Something nagged at him: what if the real test wasn't obedience, but curiosity?

He retraced his steps, back into the main cavern.

The central hall loomed vast, with its great archways leading to other tunnels. Faint echoes of voices carried from the distance. He ducked behind a pillar, listening.

The shepherd official entered, leading a nervous student by the shoulder. "Courage, lad. Only the first step is the hardest. You are the last - good luck," the man whispered, guiding the student to one of the glowing tunnels. The student disappeared into the light, and the shepherd entered the portal and exited.

Aris thought, "If that was the last student, I can look around alone."

When silence returned, Aris crept forward. His boots scuffed the cavern floor as he searched methodically.

Something caught his attention a metallic clink. His foot struck against an uneven slab.

Before he could catch himself, he stumbled forward, hitting the stone face-first. Groaning, he pushed himself up, hand brushing against a hard edge.

He froze. It wasn't stone. It was a latch.

A hidden latch, set into the floor of the cavern.

His heart pounded. "What in the hells..."

He glanced toward the empty tunnels. The latch waited beneath his fingers.

And for the first time since entering the dungeon, Aris forgot about fear. He only felt the thrill of discovery.

Aris observed the latch and saw the lock was already broken, pried open by someone before him. The hatch opened with a grinding sound, revealing a ladder built into the wall leading down into darkness.

He descended to the bottom using the wall-mounted rungs. When he reached the floor, the scenery was something shocking, to say the least. It looked like a tiny control room of Realmforge. The same kind of technology from their universe.

Smashed flat screens, bent holographic display tips, broken control panels. Anything from real universe tech was rendered useless, destroyed beyond repair. Except one thing, a machine that looked like something used in their world for healing, regenerating tissue for patients who had lost limbs.

Aris walked inside the familiar control room, where his father had worked as a private security chief before being assigned to close guard duty. The sterile metal walls and advanced technology felt like a ghost from his past life.

He walked up to the only machine not smashed to bits and tried to read the writings, but unlike Realmforge's universal translator for the game, the machine's interface was in an unfamiliar script.

"This writing... wherever the workers are from," Aris thought.

He opened up the machine's small door and was shocked again. A halfling person was lying motionless inside. When he focused, Aris noticed that the individual was almost identical to one from the trial room above.

He tried to wake the halfling up and checked for a pulse, but there was none. The person was dead.

Aris then started to look around the machine and tried to understand its purpose. At the bottom, he saw radials showing twelve faces from different races, and he recognized the halfling lying there. He could also make out the human and elf who had been the "patients" in the trial room above.

Aris stood up and started thinking. Then it hit him like a lightning bolt. This was a replicator or producer for the game, and the Chalice was using it to create dungeon material. If they hadn't smashed every screen and machine, they could probably change properties of races, augment them, level them. With this machine and no Game Master intervening, they could pump out high-level slaves, he thought with growing horror.

He saw a small satchel near the machine. He hesitated to take it. They would know someone had come here if it went missing. He opened it and saw dozens of small diamond-shaped rocks. He took one and put it in his pocket, then carefully placed the satchel back where he'd found it.

Then he heard crackling sounds from upstairs, voices and footsteps.

His blood ran cold. Someone was coming.