The second trial
At forty, the mountain
stops and counts you.
The Awakening gave you a name at level 5. The Reckoning, at level 40, asks whether you earned it. It is faced alone: four halls, each sealed behind the last, two shrines to breathe at, and at the end of them something that wears your own face. Pass, and the road above opens: your own walked deeper, or a second road beside it. Fail, and the gods take a level.
Start with the wall01 / The wall
Level 40 Is a Door, Not a Number
The same rule the Classless meet at 5, one more timeExperience banks at 40
Reach level 40 unreckoned and your bar fills and stays full. Every fight and contract after that still pays, and every point of it is kept for you. The moment you pass the Reckoning it all lands at once, the way the Awakening cashes what the Classless banked at 5.
If you were already past it
Characters above 40 on the day the wall went up are set back to 40 the next time they sign in, with everything the levels gave cut to fit: stat points beyond the allowance returned to the pool, the latest techniques struck, hotbar entries the level no longer knows cleared. The gods draw the line once, for everyone.
Where it is posted
At 40 the expedition board offers THE RECKONING to any Awakened class. It is faced alone: part from your companions first. Nothing is lent at the door except one tool, Heave, and you bring what you are.
02 / The four halls
Each Door Is Sealed Behind the Last
The rooms are faced in order; every door past a fight stays sealed until the room is finished1. The Hall of Braziers
A Warden that cannot be hurt while an acolyte chants, and four acolytes rooted beside their braziers. Swing at the Warden and the blow is refused; the ward's own tooltip tells you why. Silence the four voices and the chant breaks, the Warden wakes in earnest, and only then does it bleed. Every class is handed Heave at the door: throw an acolyte one cell into its own brazier and it burns where it lands, because the chant will not let it walk out.
2. The First Rest, then the Gauntlet
After the braziers, a shrine: face it, press F, and you are mended to full, once. Then three chambers back to back with no breath between them, each door sealed until the fight before it is won. What you carry in, draughts and charge and gear, is what you have.
3. The Hall of the Stone
A stone in the floor that knows you. Come near and it asks one thing only you would know: which doors you have walked through, how deep you have gone, what curse you worked into your steel, which oath woke on your gear. Four marked stones in the corners hold the answers, and a card on screen names which is which. Face one and press F. Right, and the way opens with a word. Wrong, and two hounds come for the lie first, and the way opens all the same. Walking over a stone does nothing; the answer is a deliberate act.
4. The Second Rest, then the Mirror
One more shrine, one more full mend, and the last hall. What stands in it is described below. Beyond it, the shrine that ends the trial.
Sealed doors
Try a sealed door and it tells you what it waits on. There is no key. The braziers' door waits on the chant, each gauntlet door on the fight before it, the stone's door on your answer, the last door on the mirror. Nothing behind you matters once the door ahead opens.
No regen, no rest
Trial grounds heal nothing on the walk and the REST verb is refused; the two shrines are the only mercy. Harvesting still works, and what you gather comes home with you.
03 / The mirror
It Has Your Face
Built from you the moment the fight starts, and beatable only by playing better than it doesWhat it is
Your level, your body and gear, your hotbar, your numbers, under your name and the word "Unproven". Nothing you earned on the way down is its: no workings, no charge, no draughts, and not the Heave the gods lent you. It stands in the initiative right after you, every round, and it waits for you.
What it does
It answers every act of yours with the same act. You heal, it heals. You cast your big spell, it casts your big spell at you. You lay a cloud on it, it lays that cloud on you. A turn you spend only moving gets its class's plain opener instead. It copies the act, never the judgement: it heals at full health, executes you at full health, and pays for what you did without having planned for it.
How it ends
The first six rounds are an even fight decided by the gaps above. From the seventh it hits five percent harder every round, so a stalemate ends. Spend your cheap acts when it is full and your expensive acts the turn after it wasted one. Fight it act for act and you lose; fight it by what it cannot see and you win.
04 / The prize
Your Own Road, or a Second
The wall lifts, the banked climb lands, and the shrine offers two kinds of answerContinue on my path
The first row at the shrine is your own class. Take it and you walk your road to its end: two capstones, one at 45 and one at 50, that no split hand ever holds. They are the heaviest things in the kit, gated by cooldown, not by any rule the class did not already play by. The shrine shows both before you choose.
A second road
Every other class your race allows, rare ones by the same chance the Awakening rolls them. A road does not hand over a class's first ten levels; it hands over five of what that class is, at 41, 43, 45, 47 and 49, scaling at your true level. There is no kneeling here: the Reckoning is chosen, never rolled. The choice is forever.
The bar is still the limit
Two roads do not make a wider hotbar. Eight slots and the item slot are still what you fight with, so a second road is a question of what you leave off, not only what you add. Rearrange at the Tavern as always.
| Class | What its road hands over (41 · 43 · 45 · 47 · 49) | Its capstones (deepen only) |
|---|---|---|
| Warrior | Strike, Taunt, Shatter, Hold the Line, Fell Stroke | Unbroken (45): a shield and three turns War-Drunk. The Last Argument (50): the heaviest blow in the kit, more if they were Exposed, and a stun. |
| Rogue | Stab, Deep Cut, Venomwork, Mid-Sentence, Coup de Grace | From Behind (45): blink behind them and open a three-turn bleed. Nobody Saw (50): a heavy cut that silences them and leaves you Evasive. |
| Cleric | Heal, Cleanse, Judgment of Blood, Ward, The Unblinking | Intercession (45): a great mend that strips every curse and leaves them Protected. Last Rites (50): holy fire on one foe that mends the whole party. |
| Death Knight | Reap, Grave Chill, Icy Grip, The Grave Calls, What Winter Fears | Bulwark of Bone (45): a shield, Bulwark, and every foe forced onto you. Death's Dividend (50): a heavy blow, more below forty percent, all of it drunk back. |
| Demon Hunter | Glaive, The Fire Remembers, Sign Here, Full Stop, Annihilation | Metamorphosis (45): three turns of Demonform, sharper and harder to hurt. Glaive Storm (50): both blades at everything within three, burning, a third drunk back. |
| Druid | Wildskin, Grow Back, Entangle, The Forest Breathes, Roots of Stone | The Wild Takes Sides (45): every foe poisoned and rooted for two turns. Tranquility (50): the whole party mended, cleansed and given Renewal. |
| Engineer | Sentry Spark, Barrier Rig, Overclock, Tesla Coil, Siege Blast | Emergency Power (45): a quarter of everyone's resource back and a shield on each. Demolition Charge (50): a wide blast that burns and Exposes everything in it. |
| Necromancer | Soul Bolt, Wither, Dread Harvest, Bone Prison, Deathstorm | Raise the Fallen (45): a skeletal warrior at more than half your health for five rounds. The Debt Comes Due (50): shadow, doubled on the Doomed or Poisoned, all of it drunk back. |
| Paladin | Oathstrike, Lay on Hands, Thrown Verdict, Load-Bearing Faith, By This Hand | Unyielding Oath (45): a shield, Bulwark and Consecrated for three turns. Sentence Passed (50): a heavy holy blow that stuns and mends the party. |
| Shaman | Stone Chant, Cleansing Rain, Chain Lightning, Ancestral Surge, Stormcall | Thunderhead (45): fire on every foe and every one of them Exposed. The Ancestors Answer (50): the party mended, cleansed and a fifth of its resource returned. |
| Warlock | Exchange Rate, The Slow Word, Familiar Flame, Withdrawal, The Last Word | Terms and Conditions (45): shadow on every foe, all Weakened, half drunk back. Foreclosure (50): shadow, more below thirty-five percent, their resource drained and yours mended. |
| Wizard | Arcane Bolt, Freeze, Fireball, Slow, Second Opinion | Absolute Zero (45): every foe frozen where it stands. The Final Equation (50): the biggest single spell on the mountain, more on the Frozen. |
05 / The price
What Failing Costs
The Awakening let you try again for free; the Reckoning does notA wipe
Fall in any hall and the gods take a level: you wake at the Tavern at 39, with stat points, techniques and hotbar cut to fit exactly as the wall cuts them. Climb back to 40 and the board posts the trial again. On a realm with permadeath at the trials, the flag applies here as it does at the Awakening.
Walking out
Leave through the door you came in and you keep your level, but the run's charge is forfeit: nothing of it settles into experience the way a walk out of the mountain would pay. What you harvested stays yours.
A wrong answer
Costs a fight, not the trial. The hounds come, the way opens, and you go in to the mirror a little more worn than you would have.
06 / The fine print
Everything Else That Is True
Short, because the halls tell you the rest as you reach them- 1 Faced alone, by any Awakened class, once. A reckoned character never sees it posted again.
- 2 No boons are offered. Heave is handed to everyone at the door and goes away when the trial ends, like any boon. There is no draught toll at this door: every potion you carry comes in with you, and the usual three a fight applies.
- 3 Every fight inside is built for one: the Anvil's monsters in ones and twos, hitting at three quarters of their strength. Hosts tune that from the trial's dial; the mirror is exactly you and is never softened.
- 4 The stone's question is drawn from your own record. Guides cannot answer it for you.
- 5 The mirror's growth starts at round seven and adds five percent a round. Both numbers are dials under TRIALS, and they will move if the ledger says they should.
- 6 A road's five and a path's two are tables on the class, not rules in code: hosts can reshape either in the class inspector, and the validator holds them to five and two, past the wall, never a capstone on a road.