Day of the Trial

"Where is that boy?"

Thorvil, along with thousands of people, stood gathered in front of the great portal at Cathedral Square. They had all come to see their hero off and wish him good luck. Whereas they probably just wanted to make sure Argos didn't back out at the last moment.

'What's wrong with you, Argos....'

It was uncharacteristic that he kept the crowd waiting, and also those who volunteered to accompany him. Each race was allowed up to five volunteers to accompany the champion, and so four volunteers had already gathered at the portal. But with every hour that passed in the morning, the people became more impatient.

Thorvil could not blame them. If Argos did not arrive in time to take part in the test, a volunteer would have to be found spontaneously. And no one was eager to do that. It was most likely that one of the volunteer companions would be chosen.

One of the armored ones who would join Argos as a volunteer leaned down to whisper to Thorvil.

"Do you think your friend will still appear? It's getting late, and the crowd is getting impatient....."

"Don't worry, boy," Thorvil interjected, "it's Argos we're talking about, after all. And you know who he is."

The young man just sighed.

"I know Argos was once known as a great warrior and respected and recognized by all. But that was all a decade ago. I don't think that..."

"WHAT, you don't think what, boy? That he still has the fire in him? Oh believe me, he has more fire in his heart than you all think!"

'At least I hope so.... His appearance of late has been anything but uplifting...'

But Thorvil just didn't want to doubt his friend. After all, he also knew why Argos had volunteered in the first place. To back out now seemed illogical. It just didn't fit with the Argos he knew. No, Argos would show up here at any moment, ready for what awaited him beyond the portal. Of that, he was sure.

"I hope you are right, dwarf. For all our sakes."

That the human addressed him by the designation of his race instead of his name, Thorvil skillfully ignored. After all, he was 347 years old and tired of fighting and mistrust. At his age, he felt, one simply had to overlook the minor sins of the young, as long as they were not too serious. What did a snide remark matter?

"We'll wait another hour," Thorvil said in conclusion. "If he doesn't show up then, I'll go and drag him here myself."

'Let the mob mob in the meantime. Not one of them has even the slightest bit of guts!'

Unlike the dwarves, the humans were quite a strange people for him when it came to subjects like fate. They simply never wanted to surrender to fate and, even if it was hopeless, they preferred to nag about it instead of accepting it and working on it. And all too often, they looked for one who would rescue them from their predicament. One like Argos.

If they put their energy more into solutions than into nagging, they would probably be an extraordinary race that could go far quickly. But this, Thorvil was sure, was probably their compensation, their destiny, to keep the balance in the universe.

'The Titans are really good at comedy...'

His own people, in his younger years, lived beneath the mountains of his homeworld. Halls cut deep into the rocks, with broad, tall columns that towered above even the cathedral hill in Riberia, were their safe home. Here, protected from wind and weather and the vagaries of nature, the dwarves spread out and devoted themselves to what they were created for.

The Titan Varacas had carved them from divine stone, at least according to an ancient dwarven legend, and imbued them with life before bringing them to their own world, Tas'Modar. There they ruled in their halls of stone, mining for the infinite riches that the interior of the world held for them.

All that changed with the fall of Tas'Modar, after the dwarves lost in the Trial of Champions 20 years ago. Varacas himself descended on Tas'Modar with his mighty hammer, and with tremendous blows he brought down the mountains, burying the dwarves in their magnificent halls.

Some of his people escaped through the portal that connected the worlds. But those who left their homeland were considered outlaws and could be annihilated without consequence by the other races. He and the other dwarves were lucky that the humans had no such intentions.

But that it would hit those same people 10 years later, no one had seen coming. They won the test only once, but they never lost it.

'Let's just hope that this time they will win...'

~~~~~~~~~

With a booming skull, Argos awoke over the table where he had emptied an entire bottle of bitter wine just the night before. His entire skull felt like a blacksmith was hammering it.

"What time is it..."

A glance out the window told him that the sun was already high above Riberia, while here in his house he was fretting over the headache. He would not have much time for it, though, because it wouldn't be long before the champion selection would begin.

'My skull...'

Despite the never-ending droning in his head, Argos straightened up and strolled over to the armor stand that guarded his old-time armor. It had been several years since he had last worn it.

'I was a completely different person then.....'

Looking at the already aged, yet still fully intact armor, memories came back to him. Memories of times when he lived as a warrior and defended his homeland. The world, however, was a different one than it was now. The last, great chaos took too great an impact on the world of humans and the survivors no longer had the strength to fight each other.

Instead, they gathered in the big cities like Riberia, where they have been fighting for survival ever since.

Putting on the armor and armed with the spear, he left his house and headed towards the marketplace The closer he got to the marketplace, the more he spotted the sizeable crowd on the horizon of his field of vision. The cheers, piercing like thunder, echoed towards him, showing their impatience and uncertainty.

It almost felt like back then. Like his time as a warrior before the disaster of 10 years ago. His armor, his weapon, and the people of Riberia standing in line to show their respect to him and the other warriors. This excitement ran through his whole body and he could not suppress a slight tremor.

All of this reminded him far too much of days he had considered long gone. That he considered never to return. But now Argos was close to the original feeling. As the crowd prepared the space he needed, he strolled toward the raised platform in the marketplace.

That Thorvil was standing there did not surprise him at all. His old friend had surely come to see him off and wish him good luck. But four volunteers who would accompany him on this suicide mission surprised him a lot.

'Surely they expect fame and glory from it....'

In his eyes, they were just fools. Glory and honor were of no use to the dead, so there was nothing glorious or honorable about dying. It was just pure stupidity mixed with arrogance. However, if they absolutely wanted to die alongside a failure, as he saw himself, he would not stop them.

"Argos! Argos!" came the shouts from the crowd.

Argos ignored them all. All, with the possible exception of Thorvil, were simply rejoicing that there was a volunteer, thus bypassing the random selection process. And because of his own past as a warrior, the odds were good that he would at least not come in last place.

The fact that he risked his life was of no concern to them and already a few days after the Trial of Champions, they would have forgotten him again, unless he returned victorious. He would be forgotten, as it happened with Ivar. If Argos would compete for these people, it would probably be enough reason for hatred and self-hatred. But his goal here had been different.

"You're quite late, Argos!" shouted Thorvil.

From the dais, the dwarf's eyes fell upon the warrior, piercing him admonishingly. The thought of Thorvil looking at his skull roaring from alcohol did not please Argos at all. He could simply see much more than the warrior would have liked. The dwarf's scowl seemed to bode ill, but within a moment, it turned into a grin.

"You damned drunken fool. You've got a lot of nerve to drink your brains out before the day of the Trial!"

Argos, however, rolled his eyes. The dwarf had shouted the words so loudly that they could still be heard far around Argos. Besides, it had only been a single bottle of wine. But now surely all who had heard it believed that Argos was drunk as a skunk.

'Not a good start for the farewell...'

The dwarf's exclamation also reached the rest of the crowd within a few seconds, and it took a little longer for whispers about Argos to be heard from all corners. Living with a familiar name and face was a double-edged blade. While everyone knew who he was when he accomplished great things, everyone also knew who he was when he showed up for the Trial of Champions with wine in his blood.

Since the crowd would run their mouths anyway and he would soon find himself in the Pantheon, he averted his eyes from the other people and instead made his way to the podium next to Thorvil, but without offering a word of greeting to his friend.

The crowd's murmurs seemed almost endless, ranging from reactions of horror at Argos' condition to excitement at how he would fare in the Pantheon. But lightning lit up the already bright day and the rumble of thunder silenced every onlooker in the marketplace.

From the distance, a dark storm cloud stirred against the wind and rapidly approached the city of Riberia. With a final mighty thunderclap that filled the entire city, lightning struck directly in front of the portal.

Against his will, Argos squinted his eyes, as did everyone else looking in the spectacle's direction, for the lightning was too bright for humans to keep their eyes open.

"People of Ismar!" thundered the voice. "I, the Titan Hephas, ruler over the world of humans, have appeared to lead the candidate of the Trial of Champions to the Pantheon!"

After a few moments of acclimation, Argos could open his eyes again and caught sight of the giant Titan beside him, or at least his foot, which towered over Argos by far. The podium did not do justice to the titan, which looked like an oversized human, so it materialized off to the side. No one could say how tall the titan really was, but it was definitely several dozen meters.

Basically, not even anyone was sure that this oversized human figure was the Titan's actual form. For from Thorvil, Argos had heard that Varacas, the Titan of the Dwarves, had taken the form of the Dwarves whenever he visited Tas'Modar.

So it was reasonable to assume that the Titans took the form of the figures they created and had ruled ever since when they went to the worlds of mortals. Either way, they were a force worse than any natural disaster known to man.

"Now, mortals. Who have you chosen as your champion? Who will compete for the glory and honor of humans in the Pantheon of Titans?"

From above, the Titan's gaze fell upon the small humans on the dais, which included Argos. The latter, however, looked up to the head of the titan unshaken. He lost his respect for them years ago, and his fear disappeared with it. Now he had only one goal and for that he had to enter the Pantheon.

"I am the participant. Argos Starksarm!"