He woke those who slumbered with a sweep of one robed arm. One by one their chrysalises cracked and spilled them free; and as a whole he led them, as if in a spell, through Canis toward Tunnel P. One--a tiger--tried to break and run. A blink and one might have missed it, the Merchant vanishing, reappearing beside the flash of striped pelt, the tiger collapsing, a sudden spill of oil across the rock and nothing more remaining. Fleeing was unwise. The Masked Merchant kept on as if nothing had happened, as if he himself had not raised them and that cat from children; and these he took to Hydra's entrance, to join the rest of them who had gathered.

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The yawning mouth of hydra was blistering heat and blinding light, with scattered sand sweeping in from time to time. To one side, Master Vargas waited, at his feet a pile of Baubled items: cloaks and pendants, collars and rings, stones, and more.

The Masked Merchant stepped past him, and the waiting Gembound, and toed the line of Hydra. From his cloak he drew forth a frost-slicked black gemstone, perhaps a foot tall, and this he held up toward Hydra's light. A quiet crack, and smoke began to seep forth, and out over the sands. The Merchant spoke, then, his voice rasping and breathy. "You gather... for another trial... to prove yourselves. Your goal... is to survive. To do this... you must find... the torches... and light them... to guide your way." The crystal he had held had dissolved, now, into nothing, and in Hydra, the light began to fade.

Blinding light fell away into dim dusk, which dropped, over the ticking seconds, into darkness. The winds fell gradually still. The heat seemed leached away, a strange and unnatural cold emanating from the cave, frosting the sides of the tunnel. For a moment, in the distance--along the ridges of the Dunes, and out through the Marshes--the Gembound could see figures in strange silhouette: tall, dark, and distorted; somehow wrong in their shape. Yet before anything clear could be made out, the darkness had become complete: a total, pitch blackness engulfing Hydra. It was so still and cold that every shuffle, every breath, seemed deafening; even Tunnel P was dark, so that the pile of baubled items, and the few glowing eyes here and there, were the only light provided.

"Take... a light. And take... this." A twist of one hand, and a large, phosphorescent blue-green wisp appeared. It cast a pool of light in the area beneath it. "This will... guide you... to the first lantern," the Merchant explained; "The creature... which hunts... consumes the light. Now go... and prove yourselves."

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Thus begins the third Trial of Hydra: "Darkness." Gembound may use this round to prepare, to investigate their surroundings, or whatever else they see fit. The Trial will begin in earnest next round. Gembound may take any Baubled item they wish from the pile and take it with them into the Trial. If characters investigate the light, will find that the more light sources are spread apart, the dimmer they become: if several lights are all together, the single pool of light is strong, but split apart each light shrinks, and shrinks... as if only so much light can be present at once in Hydra. As if something is darkening it.