The batcave challenge the next day didn’t open until late afternoon, nearly evening. That gave them time to quickly visit the Registry Library and review the single pamphlet on the Challenge. The pamphlet was restricted because the Challenge was restricted, but all they had to do was ask a Librarian for help; they were on the schedule for the Challenge. Sophia was even pretty sure which Librarian was going to help.

  Aric was in the entry area of the Registry Library, but the mouse-eared sympathetic Librarian Marcie snuck Sophia through a back route while Dav and Amy walked openly through the main entrance and kept Aric’s attention fixed in the wrong direction. They couldn’t afford to be thrown out of the Library today.

  Unlike most Stable Challenges, the Batcave was extremely small, a single cave and a few rooms carved into the rock. The open area where the pair of rails led was supposed to be extremely large; from the description and the diagram, Sophia thought it might be a train switching yard, but she wasn’t certain. Whatever it was, it wasn’t relevant to the task required for the Excellent Ears Ability.

  Instead, it was the arena for the fight triggered by killing bats. Exactly what you fought varied based on how many you killed and what you did with and to the moths, but Sophia didn’t pay too much attention to that. If you triggered the fight, you lost the chance to gain the Excellent Ears Ability.

  The only other thing that seemed noteworthy about the Challenge was its location, not far from the entrance they’d taken to the city.

  Once they entered the Challenge, Sophia quickly revised her opinion. It wasn’t nearly as bland as she expected of a cave with bats and moths. It was night outside, but that wasn’t a surprise. She couldn’t go outside anyway; that would leave the Challenge.

  First of all, there was an old rail track in the middle of the cave. Since there wasn’t one leading to Izel, Sophia had to assume that meant something about the place the Challenge Seed came from. As if that wasn’t enough, the entire cave looked like an overly fancy train station or maybe shopping area, with stone columns supporting a walkway overhead that had clearly collapsed near the cave entrance at some point in its mythical past. Stone arches still reinforced the clearly expanded cave roof.

  Second, the moths weren’t just large; they were absolutely gigantic. Some had wingspans wider than Sophia was tall. They were also brightly colored instead of drab, reminding Sophia more of butterflies than moths, but they were largely monochromatic. The pamphlet warned about giant moths and even said that each captured moth had to be laid on the altar individually until it was taken by a bat, but she hadn’t expected them to be quite that big.

  That took her to the third thing; she didn’t see any bats at all. That was apparently how they could be accidentally caught; they were hard to see.

  The fourth surprise was the location of the “altar.” The pamphlet noted that it moved around and gave a number of locations; almost all of them were behind one or even two rows of pillars, under or past the walkway. On the walkway was rare, as was the other side of the tracks and between the walkway and the tracks. They’d gotten the last location; the plain stone display area they called an altar was right next to the tracks.

  A pair of lit candles burned merrily next to it; they were the Challenge’s timers. They had until the candles burned out to catch the moths, let the bats take them, and learn the pattern that would appear in the air above the candles. Putting out one of the candles and relighting it later wouldn’t extend their time; instead, it would invalidate their efforts. Accidentally putting out one of the candles would be just as bad.

  If they ran out of time, they would have to choose between leaving the Challenge and heading farther in. There was no reason for them to take the risk of continuing forward at that point. It was too bad that they really couldn’t complete even the smallest of Izel’s Challenges, but it was also only to be expected.

  The first moth wasn’t difficult; there were a lot of them and they had both nets and Abilities. Dav laid it on the altar and they waited. A few seconds later, a clicking noise heralded the bat. Sophia was worried when she heard it; they all had waxen earplugs that were supposed to reduce the effect of the bats’ Terrifying Screech, and Taika was already trying to use his new Illusionary Aegis, but the fact that she could hear anything worried her.

  The bat flew out of the giant switching yard, then screeched. The moth froze in place and was snatched up by the bat.

  The bat was at least a quarter again the size of the moth, which meant it would have been taller than Dav if it stood upright. It was definitely something they didn’t want to fight.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Sophia felt an instant shock of adrenaline. She wasn’t frozen in fear and she certainly wasn’t terrified enough to run, but even with the two defenses she’d felt the screech. She looked around carefully. Taika stared angrily at the bat; he seemed more upset than anything. Amy shook her head as if it hurt. Dav was the only one who seemed truly unaffected; he was already hunting the next moth.

  Sophia felt well enough to help him out by the time the bat disappeared back into its cave.

  From there, it was one moth and one bat after another. They were a dozen moths in when they decided they had to speed things up; it was a little risky to not wait for the bat to catch the next moth, since they couldn’t afford to catch a bat and if they hurt the moth too much, it wouldn’t count. It was still necessary.

  The best way they had to safely hold a moth unharmed was Sophia’s Root Grab, so they began to catch three moths at once, two with nets and one with Root Grab. Amy would place hers on the altar, they’d wait for the first bat, then moments after it was taken, Dav would place his down. Once that one was gone, they’d place the one Sophia held in roots and wait for the third bat to clear the area. It was faster, but not as fast as they wanted.

  It was also very hard on the nerves to have three Terrifying Screeches in quick succession, but Taika was definitely getting better at defending against them.

  By the time they were finished with all forty moths, Sophia, Taika, and Amy were all wrung out. Sophia and Taika were also almost out of mana; Root Grab and Illusionary Aegis didn’t take that much, but they’d both stretched themselves to get there. Sophia didn’t know about the others, but she had a throbbing headache.

  They’d also used up a full half of the available length of the two candles.

  The candles seemed to glow brighter, then they began to smoke heavily. Sophia frowned at them until she realized that the smoke itself was forming the pattern. Why didn’t the pamphlet say that? She’d assumed it would be a pattern in light or fire, since most of the other patterns they’d seen were lit.

  Sophia decided to go for an Ability, since she knew how; enhanced hearing would be more useful if it was always available than if she had to cast a spell to temporarily hear better. It was a good thing it was a simple pattern, because it was hard to concentrate through the headache and mana drain.

  Even so, Sophia got what she was pretty sure was the minimum result: an Ability Fragment linked to her Shrouded Insight Grand Ability. Other than that, her new Excellent Ears Ability was identical to the one listed in the pamphlet. She didn’t have an open slot in the Grand Ability for it, but if it was affordable enough she’d seriously consider it the next time she came into a good number of Wisps. It might not be necessary if others in the group had it, but good hearing was definitely useful.

  When Sophia looked up, Dav was already done and looking at her. She didn’t even have to ask if he was done; it was visibly obvious. His ears had disappeared and seemed to have been replaced with something that looked more like slightly mottled purple fins, though the points were longer and more separated than she’d have expected.

  “Are you all right?” The words slipped out of Sophia’s mouth before she had a chance to think that maybe she shouldn’t say it that way. “I mean, what happened? Are your ears a new Ability? Did it hurt?”

  Dav reached up and rubbed his left ear. “It stung a bit. Still aches a little.”

  The words started to spill out faster and faster. “Mostly, it’s distracting. I can hear too much and I’m not sure how to separate it all out. I’m pretty sure I can hear your heart beat. And Amy’s heart. Taika’s, too. But if that’s what it is, I seem to have two.” Dav paused, then snorted. “Which I guess is possible. I don’t suppose you have that mirror handy?”

  Sophia rooted around in her pack until she found her hand mirror and passed it to Dav. He seemed to be handling things as well as anyone could, but she still worried about him. Just because things seemed good on the surface didn’t mean he was happy about becoming less human. He might well not even realize how much it was affecting him.

  She simply didn’t know what to do about it. There really wasn’t much she could do except be there for him. “So, ah, did you get Excellent Ears too?”

  Dav shook his head, then muttered something about his ears fitting the aesthetic as he handed the mirror back to Sophia. “No, it’s called Eldritch Ears. I think it’s pretty close, but I didn’t have to slot it; it made its own space in my Eldritch Acuity Grand Ability. It’s weird; the Feat notice didn’t mention a free Ability slot, but it acts like there is one. The price of a new slot didn’t go up.”

  “I guess I took longer than usual,” Sophia grumbled as she put the mirror away. “If you had time to think to check.”

  Dav shrugged. “I think it’s more the fact that you don’t have a perfect memory. I can quickly find out what changed, so it’s just a matter of flipping through a few screens each time. I’m trying to make a habit of it.”

  The two of them quietly talked for a few minutes. By the time Amy finished gaining the usual version of Excellent Ears, Dav was massaging Sophia’s head, neck, and shoulders to try to relieve her headache.

  Taika didn’t manage to succeed before the candles went out. None of them were certain if that was simply because Taika took longer than everyone else or if there was something about the Excellent Ears Ability that made it harder for Taika to acquire. Sophia thought it was the time issue, while Taika was convinced it was because his illusions were visual, not audible. Dav and Amy stayed out of the discussion.

  There might be a reference in the Batcave. Maybe. It’s a bit of a stretch.