"Back into the carriage."

It's not even in the ditch. That must have been one powerful illusion.

They come to a large hill sticking out of the general mire before too long. There are a variety of wooden obstacles set up, like something you'd see in military training courses, or possibly overly dramatic gameshows. A wall with rope, monkey bars, raised platforms with gaps, rope nets, and the like. Nobody else is here except the doorman and the three mercs.

"Right! You'll be going through this course until we're satisfied. This is the second part. After this we'll have a nice lunch and a break as we go back to the city, for a theoretical exercise and final interview." 

"Alright." This is going to be gruelling, but her birthright will protect her. She steps up to the first obstacle and waits for the signal.

"Ah, ah, ah! You're not ready yet."

They pull out of the carriage's baggage compartment, a heavy looking suit of chainmail armor, shirt and pants and metal boots, gauntlets, and helmet. The tank smiles sunnily at her while holding up the helmet.

She just nods and accepts it. She had been thinking this was too easy.

They help her don the armor. It fits nicely over her battledress. They assure her it won't hurt her clothes and that they know what her Skills and stats are, so they know exactly what she is capable of and where that capability ends.

It is HEAVY. Even just walking is a bit of a strain like this, even if her strength has increased in solid jumps at least twice since she got here. The boots limit how she can step. It's hard to make a fist through the gauntlets. The helmet blocks her peripheral vision.

The first challenge is simply to climb onto a waist-high platform in the armor.

She can do this. Brace with her arms, lift her leg, get her knee up, follow with the second one -

She's up!

There are plenty more challenges. They leave her breathing hard and sweating, muscles straining. It would be lovely to just lie down and rest.

(She definitely gained a level in something somewhere in there. Possibly several. It's likely they made things harder when that happened, since she's still struggling just as much, but now she's jumping from platform to platform in armor and not falling into the mud more than twice.)

She's barely begun. She shoves down her exhaustion, covers it in a layer of anger, and keeps going. This reminds her of her first few rounds of sparring exercises, before she adapted and her birthright kicked in. She's stronger now, and been through more. She still remembers the tearing pain of her miscast, and she lived through that. She'll live through this.

The mercs aren't showing it, but they're impressed. They expected her to complain and give up long since.

Eventually, they give her a task that is, clearly, simply... Impossible. She cannot climb a sheer wall in armor without using the rope. It's just not going to happen.

She gamely attempts it, but she can't get a handhold on the slick wall. She gives it five or six attempts with no progress before she looks at the mercs with an expression that says really?

"Finally giving up, embers?"

"Might want to try it without the damned heavy armor, but as is this ain't gonna happen." She wipes sweat from her brow.

They look at each other.

The blue-scaled caster bursts out laughing.

The archer shakes his head. "Not one complaint out of you, the whole time. Your will is abundantly clear. Let's get you out of that and get a restorative in you. You can shower back at base too."

"Thank you," she says relievedly. She takes off her helmet, runs a hand through her hair, and starts in on the rest of her outfit.

"We all had to do the same thing. Scales here spent the whole time complaining that he was a wizard and he didn't need to be able to move in armor."

They help with the armor. The tank hands her a cup of something vibrant green that smells like the most aggressive pine-flavored air freshener she's ever smelled.

She drinks without complaint. This is not the hard part.

It tastes like mouthwash mixed with kerosene.

The ache in her muscles vanishes nigh-instantly, replaced by the tautness of intense exercise. The heaviness of her limbs is gone. She's now wide awake and alert, and no longer feels so hot, though she's still sweaty. She feels like she could start running around again.

They nudge her back into the carriage, where a nice meal matching the kinds of things she tends to eat in the dining halls, but higher quality, is waiting.

Ew. But worth it. She steps into the carriage and accepts her meal. 

They let her shower and freshen up back inside the walls.

The final part of the test is a personality-quiz like questionnaire, except they're all essay questions. The leader is knocked out and the second in command is making an obvious blunder, do you follow orders or...? You are hired to assist a city with a siege however you can, what do you do? Etc.

She recognizes the value of doing something, even the wrong thing, and in the wake of a commander being knocked out it's important to preserve party unity, but nonetheless she would not allow the commander to make an obvious blunder; she'd point out the reason it wouldn't work, propose an alternate plan if she had one, and if ordered to her death simply refuse. Lesser blunders she'd go along with. She's not familiar with seige warfare but she'd try to insert agents, stir discontent and disunity in the enemy army, use fear tactics, maybe even sally if the odds were for her. The supply of the beseiging army is of paramount importance and efforts should be made to destroy it. 

She continues on in this vein, doing her best. She's inexperienced, but capable of taking a nuanced position and quite intelligent. She's used to thinking like a noblewoman jockeying for power, and that game of agent and counteragent comes through. She definitely has a superiority complex, though she's trying to control it.

The 'higher-ups', including the Amethyst Mage she met last night and the archer guy, take her answers and leave to consider. She's welcome to use the training area and equipment in the courtyard while she waits, otherwise come back in two hours.

She'll practice her sword drills, since her lessons are already done and she doesn't want to have any chance of being late to her appointment.

At her appointment, they say they're pleased to offer her a place in the Wall.

Well, the Wall's younger sister organization. They actually have two groups, one mostly composted of younger and relatively less capable people, and the more famous one composed of high-level combatants.

If she accepts, she'll sign a 2-year contract with the junior organization: The Fall Divers. The people there are closer to her power level, and frequently 'promote' into the Wall Club proper. The pay is decent, but the real meat of her future earnings would be per-mission bonuses. She'll get a 6-month training plan with good trainers and high quality gear, then start going on proper missions.

She barely considers before signing. The six-month training plan all expenses paid is exactly what she was looking for.

Congratulations to her! Does she want cake? They have cake and rum for these occasions. Does she want to go meet her new co-workers and see about scheduling the start of her training?