Chapter Eight

Before Altair walked through the doors, he crouched down to see if the Academy staff member had anything on her person he could make use of to help him survive this place. She wouldn't be needing anything anymore after all.

Rummaging through pockets, he found a small simple dagger. This would give him a huge edge assuming that no one else in here would have one. He put the simple dagger in his boot and continued on through the double doors.

He walked into a massive room with a giant pit at the center. The whole room was glowing in a red hue. Altair could only assume this was the heart of the volcano as the red glow was coming through the open pit in the middle of the huge chamber. He was not going to test his luck and look right now. He glanced around the grand entry and saw quite a few doors leading off into different areas of the complex.

Seeing only one door open, he assumed that's the direction he would need to take and took off slowly through the open door.

The door lead into a hallway with several other doors to the left and right. After walking for a couple of minutes he finally arrived at another open door and to his surprise, inside was a simple bed, desk and chair. On top of the desk was a bundle of robes and a meal. He forgot how hungry he was and quickly shut the door behind him before tearing into the meat that was piled onto the plate. It tasted good, and although Altair thought it could be potentially poisoned, he decided to press his luck as they couldn't expect them to live on nothing in this place.

Once the meal was eaten, Altair ran his hands through his long blonde hair. He thought about it for a minute and figured having long hair in this place may not be such a good thing. It was easy to get caught or pulled by potential enemies. He didn't want to give anyone an automatic advantage so he walked over to the small wash basin and started shearing his hair off as close as he could to his scalp.

Once he was done, he washed himself off and looked at himself in the mirror. The person staring back at him was someone he barely recognized. Gone was his youth and innocence, the person in the mirror looked hard with a hint of rage in his steel blue eyes. His face was all sharp angles with a strong chin and slightly protruding eyebrows. It gave his eyes a more sunken in look, but it wasnt all that unattractive. Rather, it made him look dangerous. A look that many women in the galaxy would swoon over. With his average size forehead and his sheared off hair, he looked like he was ready to join the Galactic federation officer corps.

He put on the black robes and was surprised they were an exact fit. He never recalled telling anyone anything about measurements, but that didn't really matter at this time. He laid back and closed his eyes to rest, knowing that his time was short and he had to take advantage of every opportunity he could to get sleep.

Altair didn't know how long he slept for, but awoke to the sound of his door closing shut. He sprung up and immediately drew his knife but found no one there. Instead, he saw that his empty plate of meat had been removed and another meal put in its' place. He went to the door and found that it was locked from the outside and no amount of force would make the door budge.

He looked back to the desk and noticed there were some ancient looking texts as well. Figuring these were some type of study materials, he quickly opened them up as he shoveled food in his mouth and browsed through the contents. The first text was in a language he couldn't understand. The second book was some sort of language translator that basically taught one how to read and write in the ancient text from universal basic.

Finally understanding the task, Altair knew that he would have to learn this ancient speech and that his life depended on how fast he could do it and decipher the text of the first book he glanced at. Getting immediately to work, he started taking notes and writing things down on the ancient parchment he was given to work with.

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"This is always my favorite part of the trials" said one Templar watching the various Acolytes locked in their rooms studying. "Anyone can take a life, but it takes intellect to learn a language from a poorly written book." laughed the man as he sat back and flicked through the different rooms.

"You are right of course" said another Templar out loud. "This trial tends to weed half the population out. The mystic arts is only present in beings with a high intellect, but you still have to be the best of the best to pass this trial. To think that half of these Acolytes will be gone within the next two weeks."

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Altair continued to study the ancient language over the next two weeks. He found out after a brief translation that it was an ancient script called Vorgulian. He was going stir crazy being confined to the room, but he knew he would die here if he didn't learn the ancient style Vorgulian as quick as he could. He had finally started to decipher the first few pages in the first book and saw it was basically a mantra for the Templar.

"I bet this is what I need to get out" thought Altair as he continued to make headway on the translation. I doubt they expect me to be able to read the whole book right away." He had discovered the day before they had halved the food they were bringing up to his room. This told Altair that his time was starting to run out and they would soon leave him in here to starve and wither away.

After a few ore days, he finally had the mantra translated, or at least he thought he did. He had double and triple checked the language translation and was fairly confident he had it right. Excited, he read it out loud for the first time.