Having left Midori just outside of the temple, Shadow Moonbeam took a deep breath. She was far more nervous than she could have possibly let on in front of any observers, and despite her carefree attitude Shadow felt she had to keep some sort of public image. One hand rubbed nervously at the back of her neck as she moved deeper into the ancient temple; each step taking her just that much further from the bright Sograt Desert sun, and deeper into the darkness ahead.

There was enough illumination from outside to dimly light the entrance chamber. Brown stone pillars lined the walls, and there were hieroglyphics carved into every available surface, depicting scenes and myths from long before Fortuna's recorded history. Shadow gave them a glance, briefly, but she sensed she wasn't alone in that empty hall. Vibrant green eyes glanced about, and her hand instinctively shot down to the dagger at her side.

"Come on," she said to the dusty air, turning about as she walked to never keep her back to one place for too long, "I know you're here. If this isn't the beginning of my test, we're gonna have a problem!"

"We wouldn't want that, now, would we?" came a deep, male voice that bore a hint of amusement.

Shadow's eyes narrowed, though she couldn't locate the source of that voice. "Where are you?" she called out, her blade flashing into her hand.

"Shadow Moonbeam," the voice chided, "we've been watching you. You're very talented. Far too good for a petty thief, and far too disciplined to continue as a rogue. I particularly enjoyed that stunt against Lord Rithaz in Niffelheim..."

The young thief's eyes widened at that, and she slid her back to a pillar to try to get her bearings and take in all of her environment. "Nobody but Denny and Rithaz saw that..."

"And Midori," the voice corrected, "who you wisely left outside."

Shadow couldn't help but start trembling as she clenched her dagger tightly. Her eyes darted to and fro, and her breath was becoming ragged. There was nothing but silence in the chamber for a long moment, until the sound of heavy stone grinding echoed through the hall. The far end wall was slowly moving aside, revealing a twisting stairwell descending into the temple. Blue crystals dotted the walls on the way down, providing azure illumination. Shadow swallowed as she looked toward the new exit, but hesitated. The mysterious voice spoke once more.

"Go, Shadow. Your application to the Assassin's Guild will begin soon thereafter."

Letting out a heavy sigh, Shadow Moonbeam moved through the newly-formed doorway, descending the stairs carefully, and not knowing what may lay ahead.

-------------

"Your test is going to be a little different from most applicants," the voice informed Shadow as she wound down the stairs, "We have omitted the written portion from your examination, for example. Knowing you as we do, it's assumed that you would grow bored with that quickly."

Shadow snickered at that, finally reaching the open chamber at the bottom of the stairs. "Damn right," she replied aloud, looking about at the new surroundings.

The room was large and square, with crystals of varying colors providing the light from strategic places on the walls and ceilings. The variety of hues in those glowing gems provided unusual illumination about her, with some portions of the room cast in the light of a vibrant spectrum, while others seemed swathed in complete blackness. The floor itself seemed to be dotted with debris of fallen pillars and crumbled statues, with even a few remnants of walls fully standing. Shadow surmised that this place was originally constructed to be more labyrinthine than open. As she was taking in her situation, some of those areas of darkness shifted, and formed into humanoid figures, roughly eight feet in height, that began to move about.

"Not the weirdest thing I've ever seen," she muttered to herself, knife still in hand.

The voice of her guide chuckled. "I'd hope not, considering the trips you've taken. No, this is a test of accuracy. It's very important to differentiate a target of hostility from innocents around them. Your mission is to determine which creature among these is the threat, and then eliminate it... before it eliminates you."

She nodded to those instructions, tucking a crimson strand of hair behind her ear as she looked to each of the identical shadowy figures in turn. "So am I supposed to talk to them?"

"Would you talk to people to find out which you're supposed to kill?" teased the man's voice, "no, these creatures are not capable of speech. However, every one of them is programmed to react as a regular person would, including the one who knows itself to be your target."

A wide grin broke over Shadow's face at that. She figured she was expected to use powers of stealth and observation to determine her foe. As usual, she had her own ideas. She ran forward, weaving through the shadow creatures to run up the crumbling remnants of a wall, giving herself a view of the entire room from it's highest point. She watched the creatures milling around for a bit, then shouted out; "HEY! You know I'm coming for you!"

The creatures stopped, all turning to look at her at once. Shadow's eyes locked upon one of them, and she smirked. Leaping down from her perch, her dagger flashed out in a pair of silver streaks through the multi-coloured lighting, two quick slashes criss-crossing the monster's chest. It threw back it's head as if in a howl of pain before dissolving into the nothingness from which it was spawned. The other creatures stood still for a long moment before evaporating as well.

After a few seconds of silence, the guide's voice chimed out once more. "I've never quite seen an approach like that, before. How did you discern that was your enemy?"

Shadow shrugged, looking up to the ceiling as she responded. "It was a guess, at first. I just started moving toward the biggest clump of shadow guys. Only one of them looked ready to fight back, so I figure that one wasn't the innocent one."

The silence in response was deafening. A stone panel in one of the walls slowly slide aside, revealing a narrow corridor leading to her next test. With a satisfied smirk, Shadow Moonbeam proceeded toward her second challenge.

-------------

"Stealth has never been a tool you've used much," the voice finally spoke again as she made her way along the straight passage, "so while most Assassin prospects would be given a test of their hiding ability at this point, we have decided that it isunfitting to your unique abilities."

"Awesome," Shadow replied, idly twirling her dagger in her left hand as she strolled leisurely through the carved stone corridor, "so what do you have for me, instead?"

She asked that question as she entered the next room, which was not nearly as large as the last. It was a perfect cube, with a high ceiling and a smooth floor clear of any rubble. There was an open archway opposite where she entered, allowing Shadow to pass directly through to her third challenge, had the massive, armored creature not been blocking the way. Judging by the size of the room, she quickly estimated this beast to be roughly twenty feet in height; which also caused her to wonder how the thing got into this chamber in the first place. It wore thick plates of black metal, and all she could see between the joints of its armor was more shadows. It seemed the Assassin's guild was fond of animating the darkness for it's challenges. The dark monster hefted a double-headed axe which had a blade roughly the size of Shadow's torso, swinging it in her general direction. The young thief reflexively ducked her head and rolled in the direction opposite of the weapon's arc, sending her further into the room. Steel grates fell over both archways with a gut-wrenching clang of metal on stone.

"Kill that," came the reply from her mysterious guide.

Shadow had a snarky reply ready, but she was far too busy with dodging that axe as it came whooshing back for a return trip toward her head. She jumped back, flattening herself to the wall as the heavy iron blade passed her by barely an inch. She set her jaw as it seemed this monster was no practice dummy like the creations from the last room. It also seemed more than happy to try and really chop her in half, which was not at all how she wanted to finish her day. Before it could recover from it's latest swing, Shadow charged forward toward the fiend.

It moved with astounding speed for something so large and covered with armor. A metallic boot lashed out, planting itself squarely into Shadow's stomach, winding the girl and sending her hurtling against a wall with a painful thud. Stars clouded her vision, and she could see overlapping, swimming images of the room as her eyes fought to refocus themselves from the impact of the blow. With no time to spare, she tumbled again, the blade of the axe coming straight down upon the spot on the floor she had recently been occupying. Scrambling to her feet, she ran around the monster's side, stabbing with her dagger to only have her strike turned aside by the thick metal plating.

"I knew I should have brought a bow," she grumbled to herself as the creature turned to face her once more.

The axe raised again, and Shadow knew that it was going to be another horizontal slash aimed for her neck. Thinking quickly, Shadow clenched the blade of her dagger between her teeth as she took a step forward, then leapt back to plant one foot against the wall. As the axe screamed through the air toward her, she shoved down hard with that foot, lauching herself into the air to land atop the swinging blade. The momentum of the creature's attack carried through, and she scurried down along the haft of the axe, then climbed up along it's plated arm.

While this particular beast was no more capable of speech than the last, it's frustration was evident. It dropped the axe quickly, swatting at Shadow with it's opposite arm. The gauntlet narrowly missed crushing her, instead striking itself with a resounding clang that clearly caused the monster some discomfort. Shadow grinned to herself, standing upon the shoulderpad of that great suit of armor, her dagger reclaimed by her left hand. Another gauntleted fist soared toward her, and Shadow vaulted to the monster's opposite shoulder, which forced the blow to instead land upon it's own helmet, knocking it slightly askance.

The creature staggered, and Shadow took her chances with another attack. Grabbing a jutting peice of metal upon the helm, Shadow swing around to wrap her legs around the monster's head, seating herself on the back of it's neck. Both hands grabbed the hilt of her dagger as she reached around her foe's helmet, then brought the dagger straight back into one of the eye slits with all of the force she could muster. She felt the blade sink into something almost like flesh, and the arms of the creature flailed about uselessly as it started to tumble to the floor. She rolled forward from the monster's helmet as the entire suit of armor came crashing to the floor, breaking into peices as the shadow creature inside faded out of existance.

"Oh, yes. That was me. That was ALL me," Shadow beamed, pumping her fist up into the air.

As the grating over the doors raised once more to permit Shadow's exit, the voice of the mysterious guide chuckled. "Impressive. Now for your final test."

Feeling quite confident in her abilities, now, Shadow strode through the last door to meet her last challenge.

-------------

The room of the final challenge was a wide hall, a long rectangular place with a low ceiling. At the opposite end of the room was a man clad in the traditional dress of the Assassin's Guild, in all black. His eyes were covered by a pair of sun shades, and his hair was a stark white mess upon his head. He stood calmly enough, his hands folded behind his back, and a pair of silver one-handed axes hanging from his hips. "Approach me," the man said; his voice was the one that had been speaking to Shadow throughout her trials.

Without thinking too much about it, Shadow took a step forward... running directly into an invisible barrier. "Ow," she said simply enough, scowling at the wall that wasn't there, "an invisible maze? How does this make any sense to test Assassins?"

"It's tradition," the man replied with a shrug.

Shadow sighed, looking side to side for any indication of where the walls may be. It was a flawless illusion, however. She frowned, scratching the back of her neck in frustration. The mysterious man continued to speak.

"This will be the longest challenge, by far. You must feel your way through the passages until you stand before me."

With a cringe, Shadow shook her head to clear her senses, reaching out to touch the invisible wall once more. It felt like stone, so clearly there was some magic at work here. With a little gasp, she reached in to her bag of holding, searching for something. The white-haired man tilted his head aside as Shadow produced a simple clip, affixing it to her hair. In one of the jewel settings on that accessory, she ran her thumb over the Horong's soul shard stored within. As she did, a mystical sphere of flame started to orbit her, revealing all illusions nearby. The man at the opposite end of the room became blocked from view as the walls became very plainly seen. From there, it was quick work for Shadow to weave her way through, letting the magic fire do the work for her.

Once she exited the maze and stood before the dark Assassin, the fire revealed some other figures standing alongside of him. He gave a slight sigh as his comrades were revealed, adjusting his sunglasses. "We didn't expect you to come so prepared, Shadow Moonbeam," he stated calmly, "I am Marcus Vitel, Master of the Assassin's Guild. You have completed all of your challenges, and survived. Do you submit yourself to the judgment of these Assassins?"

Shadow removed the clip from her hair, though the group didn't bother re-cloaking themselves once the sight fire was gone. "I do," she replied simply enough. Even Shadow wasn't so brash as to make silly comments in a room full of killers.

"Very well," Vitel responded, then spoke to the others, "speak your words. Accept or deny?"

"I say accept," came the voice of the man clad in all white.

"I, too, accept," came the voice of the icy woman with blue hair.

"Accept," came simply from the voice of the tall, beautiful woman wearing the Zealotus mask.

"Da, accept," came the voice of red-haired woman who wore the Assassin garb more fashionably than the rest.

And finally, the voice of the Assassin clad in violet came not from her lips, but in the minds of all present. I vote to accept.

Marcus Vitel nodded to each vote in turn, then his attention focused on Shadow once more.

"With the unanimous approval of these witnesses, we extend our offer of membership into the Assassin's Guild. Shadow Moonbeam, will you take the mantle of the Assassin, slaying those who would threaten the safety and well-being of Fortuna?"

"Um... well, yeah. That's kinda why I'm here," came Shadow's words before she could even think of them.

The red-haired Assassin giggled at that, but Marcus just stayed silent for a moment. "Then as Master of the Assassin's Guild, I hereby proclaim that you may now count yourself among our ranks. Your training begins... immediately."