The arena's designers had always sought to break the rhythm of expectation. Mist, mirrors, betrayal—all had tested trust and restraint. But the Gravity Wells were something else entirely: a trial that bent the very laws of the body. The arena's designers had saved one of their most disorienting trials for this stage. Where the maze had tested trust, and the bridge had tested restraint, the Gravity Wells stripped away the very laws of balance.
The hex's floor trembled, runes flared, and with a low groan, the world itself tilted. Walls became floors, ceilings became crushing planes, and every step threatened to turn into a fall. The crowd's roar dimmed into a collective gasp as champions staggered, their bodies pulled in directions that instinct could not predict. The pit was no longer beneath them—it was everywhere. Any surface could become a fall, any ceiling a deadly plane.
The enchantments inverted gravity in pulses, unpredictable and cruel. One moment, the floor was beneath their boots, the next, it was the wall to their left. Objects rolled and slid, weapons clattered, and projectiles arced in strange, impossible curves. A spear loosed from across the arena might rise instead of fall, a dropped shield might hover for a breath before slamming sideways. The task was deceptively simple: move weighted objects across the arena while holding defensive lines against opponents. But the shifting gravity made every step a gamble. Teams had to think in three dimensions, cover blind angles, and adapt to a battlefield that refused to stay still.
Before long, champions began displaying their god-given abilities to combat the trial, and since this trial did not require the champions to be called one after the other to be tested, the arena became a vibrant zone of potent divine energy and power put on full display for each champion's patron god.
The first flip came mid-step. Daryn felt his stomach lurch as the floor tilted ninety degrees, pulling him toward what had been a wall. Lyra's cloak flared upward, her body drifting as if caught in a tide. For a heartbeat, they were separated, pulled apart by vertical drift.
An opponent's arrow loosed from across the arena curved in a strange arc, rising instead of falling, slicing past Daryn's shoulder. He realized projectiles were no longer predictable, as every shot was now a question mark.
Lyra's voice cut through the chaos. "Anchor!"
Lyra bent quickly, tracing a sigil against her boot. The rune flared and clung to the nearest plane, locking her to the surface for two minutes. The anchor-rune was short-lived, but it prevented her from drifting into unreachable space. She repeated the motion for Daryn, her fingers quick and sure, and his boots locked to the wall-now-floor.
Daryn adjusted his stance. He gripped his sword with two hands on the hilt, bracing against the torque that came with inversion. Fighting one-handed was impossible here; every swing risked twisting his body into a fall. Two hands gave him stability, turning his blade into a counterweight against the shifting pull.
For a moment, they watched the arena's spectacle, as champions used their divine abilities to battle and navigate the arena. Using his sword as an anchor, Daryn evaded a projectile that suddenly sped towards him on instinct and turned to check on Lyra, only to see a flaming figure hovering above him. Aaron, the champion of Helios, smiled at him before flying to a nearby weight. The message was clear. A provocation. When opponents with god-given abilities that counter the current trial tests created an unfair battle, how would the other champions react?
"This one questions your resolve", Lyra said as she got to where he was "What would you do when the odds are stacked against you ?"
Like a spark that lit a flame, those words burned determination in Daryn's soul. His eyes gained a new light, and the stone tablet to his chest acted as fuel to that resolve, giving him direction.
"Then let's show them the mysteries the moon has over time, whenever odds are pitted against it" To resonate his burning will, the crescent sigil on his chest burned a brilliant halo proving that even Selene accepted the challenge.