“You are a projector, Sally. You possess the ability to travel along the astral plane. Demonstrate for us if you will.”
“Well, you really can’t see me doing anything. My body just sits here while I run off and play spy with my astral form. What is there to see?”
“Humor me. Please begin and report back everything you see,” Oslo insisted.
Sally let out an exasperated sigh, then glanced at Breeze and winked. She closed her eyes and stretched out her arms. Ray laughed.
“Focus Sally. And stop mocking your classmates,” Oslo called out.
Sally turned to Breeze and whispered “just kidding.”
He shrugged, and then stared at the floor.
The gold tinted glow faded away to pitch black. After a few moments, a shaft of white light emanated from the peak of the dome. Breeze could feel the floor beneath him move as the room expanded in diameter and height again.
Sally threw her arms up in the air. “Ta dah!” she said, then brought her arms down to her sides and stood rock still. “Well, can I finish now?”
“Turn and face your teammates, let them see you,” Oslo responded.
She turned around with her eyes closed.
“Let them see you.” Oslo commanded.
She opened her eyes. They shined brilliantly and her face was expressionless.
“No, let them really see you.” Oslo persisted.
Next to her the air shimmered. A few specks of light appeared and waved like a mirage as a ghostly image of Sally materialized.
Ray and Breeze were transfixed as Sally’s astral form drew closer to them while her body remained still. She smiled and gently touched each of their faces. It felt like a soft breeze caressing their skin with a tingling sensation that immediately followed. She drifted away and floated about the dome.
Oslo’s booming voice broke their trance. “Sally can travel outside her body. Her ability to project and traverse along the astral plane makes her a formidable spy. One second you see her,” Oslo snapped his fingers, “and now you don’t.” Her image faded away.
Sally’s body spoke in a monotone voice. “But I still maintain contact with my physical form, see?” And she placed her hands on her hips.
“Very good. Now, I want you to slip through the walls to the adjacent storage room and describe to us what you see,” Oslo instructed her.
Sally’s astral form materialized and gave him a mock salute, and then plunged into the wall and disappeared. She emerged into a room with equipment strewn haphazardly about. Along the walls were stacks of electronics. Each of them teeming with switches, dials and buttons that made no sense to her.
Back in the dome they all watched as Sally’s body shuddered. It began to speak in a monotone voice as the bright white eyes made it difficult to gauge any real emotion. “I can see stacks of equipment everywhere. Not sure what they’re for. They look like electronics, but they’re like, really old and dusty—”
Her body took in a deep breath and gasped.
In the storage room, Sally’s astral form was frozen in terror at the row of human figures lining the wall.
She swallowed her fear and slowly glided forward to get a closer look. As she approached, she noticed how the faint light of the room glinted off them.
“Robots,” she muttered.
Her body in the dome simultaneously relayed her words as she spoke. “I see some really weird looking old robots lined up along the walls. Creepy.”
She got as close as she dared and noticed the spots of rust peppering their bodies. They were all in various states of disrepair
“This place is really weird and old. I want to leave,” she said loudly.
“Very well,” she heard Oslo through her body in the dome, “I want you to travel out to the courtyard and tell us what you see.”
She sighed and looked the room over one last time. In her astral form, she could not only travel long distances but also had a limited ability to see through solid objects. As she spun in a circle scanning for the direction to take to get to the courtyard, she took a quick glance into the dome. She could see Oslo standing with his arms behind his back while the guys were lined up against the wall staring at her prone body. Breeze was shifting his weight from one foot to the other while Ray clenched his hands into fists.
She laughed softly to herself while gazing at each of their faces. Ray was handsome, but a little too sure of himself. Breeze was cute, but in way over his head. She knew he was smitten with her, but she saw him as nothing more than a curiosity.
She continued scanning, but found only empty chambers. She then remembered they were underground and looked up toward the surface and saw the courtyard. It was made up of white stone cut into squares with grass growing from the cracks and statues lining its perimeter.
In the middle of the courtyard, she saw a woman on a stone bench. She sat with her back to Sally stroking her long, flowing hair.
“There is someone in the courtyard,” Sally said.
“No worries,” Oslo responded, “go and describe her to me.”
Breeze and Ray watched her body take in a deep breath and briefly spasm. Oslo saw the concern on their faces and addressed them. “She is now traveling out into the courtyard to meet someone. She’ll be fine”
In the storage room, Sally’s astral form glided forward and up through multiple walls and corridors until she emerged into the courtyard. She gazed up at the deep blue sky punctuated with towering white clouds and the formidable storm that was forming in the distance behind them. She trembled as chain lightning arced through the dark and nebulous clouds. She felt every burst of electricity as a mild shock that coursed through her astral form.
She turned her attention to the woman on the bench. She had long golden hair and stroked it while humming a melody that sounded familiar to her.
Sally glided toward her as anxiety built up within. She found it disconcerting that she couldn’t see the woman’s face.
She came to a stop inches from her and felt the urge to reach out and touch the woman’s hair. She raised a hand hesitantly, then stopped and glided around to face her instead.
The woman was oblivious to Sally’s presence and continued stroking her hair and humming.
Sally leaned in close. “Not much to report here, just some lady on a bench,” she said in a very loud voice, mere inches from the woman’s face.
She then took the opportunity to look her over. The woman was beautiful. Her eyes were a blue green hue framed by high cheekbones that stared into the distance while incessantly humming and stroking her hair. She wore a white dress that flowed away from her.
Sally leaned even closer while assuring herself that the woman was not aware of her presence at all.
“I could stand in front of her all day and night, Oslo. She has no idea I’m here. Whatever sort of test you’re putting me through, it’s safe to say I passed.”
Like a viper, the woman lashed out and grabbed Sally’s astral form by the throat. Sally tried to scream while thrashing within her grip.
The woman pulled Sally close as she tore at the hand around her throat and struggled to pry it open. She couldn’t understand how the woman could grasp her astral form.
The woman tilted her head and observed Sally like a dispassionate hunter looking at an animal caught in a trap.
Back in the dome, they watched as Sally’s body fell to its knees with hands clawing at the air as if it were fighting off some invisible force.
“What’s happening to her?” Ray shouted at Oslo.
Oslo waved him off and said nothing.
In the courtyard, the woman pulled Sally close with a malevolent glow in her eyes.
“Demon!” she hissed and threw Sally across the courtyard.
She could barely scream as her astral form plunged down toward the dome. She saw the overhead lights of corridors flash above as she hurtled through them, then slammed into her body with a violent force that sent her skidding across the floor of the training room and crashing into the curved stone walls of the dome.
She laid on the floor in a daze as Ray rushed to her. She buried her face in his chest and sobbed.
Ray shouted at Oslo. “What did you do to her?”
“I did nothing. Like Breeze, she needed to demonstrate her abilities for us to observe. Like Breeze, she was challenged and lost her focus. This is the end result born from hubris,” Oslo said as he gestured at Sally.
“Who was that woman? How could she see me, let alone grab me?” she shrieked.
“Sally, you have spent much of your life self-assured in your abilities. But you have never been challenged. You always assumed that no one could ever see you, therefore, you were untouchable. This test was designed to illustrate that you should never let your guard down and to assume nothing.”
“Well, you have a very strange and weird way of showing it,” she said with an icy glare, then wrestled herself free from Ray’s embrace and walked over to Breeze in a huff to stand next to him.
Oslo closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. He held it for a moment then released it in a long exhale. He opened his eyes and nodded at Ray. “It’s time.”
Ray strode to the center. He knew Oslo would save him for last, and there was good reason. He was born into a military family and could demonstrate to the others how discipline and training always paid off.
The gold tinted glow of the walls faded as the shaft of piercing white light re-appeared and engulfed him. He stood rock still with fists slightly raised as his eyes narrowed into slits.
The ground shook as a deluge of rocks lashed at him from his left. He twisted instantly and blasted them with a barrage of energy that erupted from his hands, then shaped the energy into a cone and stepped into the rock storm, scooping up and dissipating them like water evaporating before an inferno.
The deluge came to an end. Ray held up his hands as the arc of energy retreated into them, then turned to face Oslo.
Oslo stepped out of the shadows and clapped with a broad smile plastered across his face. He clamped a hand on Ray’s shoulder. “Now that,” he boomed, “is how it should be done. Ray was presented with a challenge and met it head on without hesitation. He confronted the rock storm with precision and speed and dispatched it with ease. The result; victory. Well done, Raymond. Very well done.”
The gold tinted glow of the walls returned as the shaft of white light receded. Ray stood at full attention with a look of smugness on his face.
Sally was fuming. Her arms were folded across her chest as rage stormed across her face. She was set to explode and Oslo was the trigger. “This is not right! We came here to be taught something. Our parents were convinced that this dump you call a school would help us better understand our skills. Instead, we get dragged down into this damp and humid torture chamber where you just about killed Breeze, and I get attacked by,” she made a sweeping gesture with her hand, “some crazy devil woman. And then you have Ray go into some easy demo burning up a few rocks, and you call that a success. Is this some kind of joke?”
Oslo strolled over and stood before her as she looked up at him with hands on her hips.
“Sally, I presented each of you with a challenge specifically tailored to your unique skills. These tests created an opportunity to showcase what you bring to the arena in case of an actual combat scenario. Knowing what each of you can do gives everyone the ability to determine how to confront any opposition. What is it you don’t understand?”
Sally thrust a finger into his face. “You throw rocks at Ray and he swats them away ease. You call that a successful demonstration? And combat? What combat? My parents didn’t send me here to learn how to fight!”
Oslo gently lowered her hand. “My dear Sally, what makes you think this demonstration is over?”
A deep rumbling emanated from above as the dome shook and drops of water fell to the floor.
The rumble turned into a roar and Ray was pummeled by a deluge of water. He threw his hands in the air and fired a massive volley of energy into the torrent of water, creating a barrier that kept the flood at bay, and instantly turning it into steam. The room was drowned in a thick cloud of superheated air as Ray struggled against the onslaught of water. His legs buckled from the load as the flood pressed down upon him and he collapsed to his knees. He eventually succumbed as the barrier collapsed and the deluge swallowed him whole.
The torrent of water came to an abrupt stop, and then reversed itself, flying back up into the peak of the dome and disappearing.
Oslo stepped into the center and stood over Ray with a look of disappointment. “What just occurred is a clear illustration of what I’m trying to teach all of you. None of you has ever been pushed to the extreme. You have never been brought to the limits of your abilities. And upon reaching those limits, you never really learned how to smash through them. There are no limits, there is only the self-imposed ones conjured from your minds.” Oslo leaned down to Ray. “Your mistake was vanity. You assumed you will be the team leader. I give you a simple test, and then shower you with praise for passing it. You soak it up like a sponge and lower your guard, leaving yourself open to an attack. That is why you failed.” He turned to address the others. “A lesson for all of you. When someone flatters you endlessly, beware. This is meant to distract and weaken you. Be humble in the way you live your life knowing you can always be better. Never allow pride or vanity to govern oneself. There is more to this world than you.”
Ray was on his hands and knees coughing up water. He looked up at Sally expecting her to come rushing to him. Instead, she ran to the exit and pounded on the stone in rage. The outline of the door appeared, and she slipped through as it slid up.
Oslo shook his head. “Discipline, Sally, discipline!” he called out to her.
She responded with a shriek and she rushed down the corridor. The door slid to close and faded into the stone.
Ray stumbled to his feet and stood next to Breeze.
Oslo nodded at them. “You have experienced much today. Session is over. These sessions are over when I say they are over. Dismissed.” He turned and exited the dome as a section of wall disappeared, then reappeared once he stepped through.