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Now that Mouse is a party member and fit for combat, we’ll need to backtrack to a grotto we passed earlier. Along the way, we face another group of spirit wolves. There are four this time, but since Mouse is on our side it’s manageable. I make sure to have him engage the wolf coming at us from behind to protect our rear, then I focus on targeting the others one at a time. The Shining Orbs we picked up at the start of the Fade serve as health potions and they’re great for keeping us in fighting shape, as is the Heal spell. Using our ability to restore health as well as some teamwork, we defeat the wolves and make our way to the grotto. There are numerous flames there, and as we arrive a lava creature comes out of the ground. This is a rage demon, the most belligerent (but least powerful or intelligent) of the different kinds of demons. The rage demon taunts us, and when I respond that it’s two against one the creature drops a bombshell—Mouse has been helping it kill other apprentices. Mouse claims that he’s not working for the demon anymore and can’t be intimidated. It’s a bit of a shock, but the battle ensues and right now we need to focus on winning.

We’ll be fighting on two fronts. The rage demon is actually a fairly weak opponent type in later stages of the game, but right at the start on Nightmare difficulty he’s a formidable. He has a number of fire-type abilities and is quite tough and durable. Making it more challenging, as the fight starts four wisp wraiths suddenly appear and intervene on the rage demon’s side. They’re not a serious threat in and of themselves, but as support for the rage demon they’re a concern—their magic projectiles can drain our health enough to tip the battle against us. Going in, I order Mouse to attack the rage demon. His job is going to be to keep our primary target busy while I focus on getting rid of the wisp wraiths. Doing so isn’t difficult, and I make sure to use Heal on Mouse when his health bar gets a bit low. Once the wisps are gone, I join Mouse against the rage demon, and it soon falls to our double-team. We’ve won, but something seems off, especially since Mouse was helping the rage demon. I confront him about it, and he assures us that he knew from the start we were up to the challenge and none of our predecessors were. He then expresses hope that we’ll take him back to the real world, another red flag. As the conversation continues, it’s eventually revealed that Mouse is himself a demon in disguise. He was our actual opponent the whole time, and our task was to avoid being duped into letting him leave the Fade. Since we saw through it, we’ve officially passed the Harrowing and are teleported back home.

We wake up in our bedroom and engage in conversation with Jowan, another apprentice and a friend of the player character. Jowan is glad to see us and know that we passed our Harrowing. At the moment, though, he’s bummed out. He still hasn’t gotten to go on his Harrowing yet and is concerned that the Circle may force him to take the alternative Rite of Tranquility. Used on apprentices who are either untrustworthy or afraid of the Harrowing, the Rite of Tranquility renders a mage “tranquil” meaning stripped of all magical abilities—and, as a side effect, completely emotionless. Tranquil are highly valuable because of their unparalleled administrative skills, but Jowan finds the thought of losing his emotions unbearable. Regardless, we have things to do. Now that we’ve passed the Harrowing, we have to go talk to First Enchanter Irving for our debrief, and Jowan says he’s expecting us soon. The conversation ends and we can head over, but first I’ll assign the points I gained from reaching Level 2. We have three new Attribute points, and I add two to Magic and one to Willpower. We can also add a new spell to our repertoire every time we gain a new level, and I choose Shock. It’s the next spell in the lightning chain, and it creates a cone of electricity that does area damage rather than just a single bolt. Finally, I pull up our inventory and use a Formari tome we started the game with. Reading one of these books gives us a bonus point, and after I read it we now have a Skill point to use. I put it into Coercion, which serves to make our character more persuasive. It’ll definitely be helpful in social situations later.