Author's note for those who skip them:

  Felix has to start the first gate over whenever he fails to clear it. If he leaves without dying, he can continue from where he left off. This wasn't made clear in the story text. I'll be fixing it after book 1 is finished. Thanks to for pointing this out in the comments.

  Felix dashed through the forest, dodging lethal webs as the hoard of slicers raced to clear the path in front of him. His training over the past month paid off. Compared to him a month ago, he flew through the first obstacle and quickly cleared the slicers' territory. He didn’t stop running until he was thoroughly clear of the area, afraid he’d catch a stray silk strand that would end his latest attempt.

  After taking a break, he started the long trek to the river, while still exhausting, he not only made better time but also didn’t feel like he was on the verge of collapse when he reached the river. Still, when he reached the bank, he nearly cried. The humid jungle air had left him feeling sticky with sweat and covered in detritus. Just washing his face was a relief, never mind taking a drink of the frigid water.

  With all the extra time he had from reaching the river so quickly, he decided to find himself a nice piece of wood to use as a staff. Felix hadn’t had enough lessons for his ability with the staff to surpass his skill with the sword.

  Still, when your only weapon was a stick, you might as well make it a long one. The extra range meant his strikes packed a little more of a punch, and if all else failed, the little extra reach would keep whatever fresh hell the forest decided to throw at him just a little bit further away.

  He eventually found a good one, and with all the spare time, he even managed to use one of the sharp rocks from the riverbank to shape the branch a little further. When he finished, he felt just a little more confident. It wouldn’t do much, but it was definitely better than nothing.

  With nothing else to do, Felix started moving slowly upstream in hopes of catching Knucklehead Skewer a little earlier. After walking for a couple of hours, he finally saw the little boat off in the distance. Apparently, this far upstream, he’d yet to run into the angry school of fish.

  The little fellow was making rapid progress zipping down stream, his ability far improved when he only had to focus on steering. Felix had to quickly scramble to find a rock that jutted out far enough into the river to make sure he’d be visible.

  He quickly clambered up the jagged stone, earning himself a few nasty cuts in the process. Still, he had no time to be concerned. The deafening noise of the river made yelling useless. He scrambled to the top of the stone and started waving as the boat got closer and closer. His worry mounted. The boat was too far in to jump on, and Knucklehead was focused on the water, not seeing Felix.

  If he didn’t see him in time, then this attempt at the challenge might well be another bust. When the boat reached the closest point to Felix, he grew desperate. With no other choice, he took his nicely sculpted staff and threw it at the little boat.

  He missed, but it landed close enough to draw Knucklehead’s attention. Felix frantically waved his hands and pointed to the shore. The blank look he got in turn didn’t give him much hope that Knucklehead would stop.

  Thinking fast, Felix quickly pantomimed eating in hopes of getting the little guy to stop. Thankfully, it worked. Felix could see the moment his eyes lit up in realisation, and he started steering towards the shore.

  Carefully making his way down the stone, Felix jogged downstream to meet up with him. When he reached the boat that had already been pulled into the shallows, knucklehead fervently started talking with animated hand gestures.

  Felix couldn’t hear a word he was saying over the roaring of the river. Frustratingly, instead of moving away, Knucklehead simply tried to read Felix’s lips. Maybe it would have worked if it weren’t for the fact that they were completely different species. As far as Felix could tell, they didn’t even make the same shapes with their mouths to produce sounds.

  Mercifully, he eventually got Knuckelhead to follow him further away from the river, with a few rows of trees between them and the source of the noise. Communication became possible.

  They still had to yell just to be barely heard, but it was better than trying to communicate with crude hand gestures and nonsensical lip-reading.

  “There’s a school of Knuckleheads further downstream. If you keep going, you’re going to be attacked from all sides!”

  “Wonderful! I must thank you! I will hunt these fish post haste!”

  “What?! No! If you go, they’ll attack you from all sides!”

  “Yes! It will truly be a great catch! Perhaps they will be the key to earning my name!”

  Not wanting to go down this route, Felix quickly thought of a way to dissuade him.

  “It won’t work! Knucklehead meat tastes terrible! It’s waxy and tasteless!”

  For a moment, Knucklehead was deep in thought.

  “Then I must find a different creature to hunt!”

  “What about the other side of the river?! I can help you reach it!”

  Knucklehead immediately shook his head.

  “You know we cannot cross the river before we earn our names. I must find what I need on this side and create a dish worthy of a name!”

  “Then if I help you find something, can you take me across the river afterwards?!”

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  Knucklehead’s eyes lit up with excitement.

  “Of course! To wander a land full of ingredients will be a marvelous adventure! Do you know of any ingredient worthy of a hunt?!”

  Felix thought hard. The only creatures he knew how to find were the slicers and the two beasts that would soon face each other somewhere in the forest. With neither of them being viable options, the two of them just ended up scouring the nearby woods for ingredients.

  Knucklehead managed to find a few mushrooms and some apparently edible moss. Felix, however, had no idea what to look for. He tried pointing out various things to Knucklehead, but the little creature just looked at him with more and more exaggerated looks of pity.

  After a few hours of searching, they’d still found nowhere near enough ingredients to make a meal. Their search was interrupted by a commotion from deeper into the forest. Birds took to the air, and the earth beneath their feet shook. Mighty crashing sounds washed over them as trees were torn from the earth and thrown about like twigs.

  Without talking about it, Felix and Knucklehead grew still with the rest of the forest. Instinctively, they knew that if they were to catch the attention of those beings, their death would be swift and certain.

  After a couple of minutes, the sounds of battle came to an end. Felix couldn’t believe how short the fight was. He’d seen its aftermath. To cause that much devastation in such a short amount of time… he had to increase his estimation of his fellow contenders’ strength again.

  As soon as the noise started returning to the forest, Knucklehead jumped up in excitement.

  “C’mon! We need to go while the meat is fresh!”

  “Wait! Don’t go!”

  Felix tried desperately to stop the little guy. He still wasn’t able to keep up with his rapid pace, but at least he was able to stay close enough to be heard.

  He tried everything to convince him to turn around, to wait, to stop. Nothing he said got through to him. It was like he was being driven by a compulsion to go to that clearing.

  When they reached it, Felix’s heart stilled, and a cold dread crept up his body, leaving him frozen in fear. The forest was eerily still. The only sound was Knucklehead rushing towards the downed cat, shouting back in excitement as he went. Felix couldn't make out the words over the sound of his blood rushing through his ears.

  They were going to die, he was going to die. He remembered the feeling of the clawed hand ripping through his chest and nearly vomited. The only thing that kept him from doing so was the crippling fear that making even the slightest noise would draw attention to him.

  To his horror, the oppressive feeling blanketed the clearing once again as the humanoid creature with its fractured, spiked carapace crept into it. Slowly and deliberately, it started walking towards Knucklehead.

  He could see the fear in the little thing’s eyes. It finally understood that they were dead, and there was no hope of survival.

  As Felix looked back at the horrific creature, he was shocked. Sailing through the air was a stone.

  He looked at his hand, still poised from where it had just thrown the thing.

  “Again?!” He croaked out in a horse voice, unable to believe that his appendage had betrayed him again.

  Hearing the sharp clack of the stone hitting the creature, Felix turned his look of disbelief towards it as they shared a moment of confusion.

  The Ways had kindly cleaned up after he’d once again failed to keep his breakfast down. It slowly blurred the memories of his newest horrific death. As Felix lay under the twisting skies of the Ways, he wondered just why his hand kept throwing the stone without his permission.

  While he wanted to be mad about it, he couldn’t be. A part of him was happy that, in spite of the overwhelming dread, a part of him was able to fight. A part of him still tried to defend Knucklehead. He might never be a knight, but he could still do something.

  Even if that something was dying painfully, it was done while trying to buy its little friend time to escape.

  ‘Yeah, ok, maybe I shouldn’t be too proud of my ability to die horribly.’

  Even as he thought it, a little smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

  Not wanting to delay and give himself time to think of a reason not to go back in he jumped through the gate. He’d find a way to clear the thing, one way or another.

  He tried to find Knucklehead further upstream, but they still ran out of time. He tried to convince him to stay away from the fight, but that failed, too. Eventually, he managed to change the ending slightly by convincing Knucklehead to try the slicers.

  That ended with them both getting decapitated with their strings. Felix quickly learned that Knucklehead did not do well with subtlety, or anything even vaguely approaching stealth. He also refused to be sidelined, so when Felix took him to the slicers’ territory, he marched right in as if he was going to just walk up and pluck one out of a tree.

  Felix managed to save them from the first barrage, only for them both to die soon after.

  On the next go, he tried to find a dead spider and take it to Knucklehead. It wasn’t easy, but he managed to kill one by tossing a stone covered in beetles at one from cover. It was quickly killed by its brethren before they turned on Felix.

  That was one of the hardest runs as Felix had to make his way to the river carrying the spider corpse while bearing a nasty gash on his leg. When he finally presented his prize to Knucklehead, the little bastard refused to use it. It was rejected because it wasn't a fresh kill.

  One positive thing that came from scoping out the spiders’ territory in an attempt to kill one was that he learned the cat wasn’t the first competitor to die. Apparently, the owl flew too low over slicer territory. He found a corpse being swarmed by slicers. Not far from the corpse, he found the remains of a wing, already devoured to the bone.

  The thought that such a mighty beast could have fallen at the first hurdle was shocking, at least it was until he remembered the writhing mass of slicers that chased him every time he crossed their area.

  He even managed to snag a bit of owl meat by following the owl at the start of the race and quickly chasing the spiders away from the corpse using beetles after it died. He thought he might have had it when Knucklehead looked excited for once. He even cooked a meal for them, having his name changed for the rest of that run to Nightstalker owl cutlets.

  Ultimately, the dish was turned down because the meat wasn’t fresh enough. Felix tried a few more times, but even at his fastest speed, he couldn’t make it in time.

  After losing track of the number of attempts he’d made, Felix finally had to admit it. He was stuck.

  Leaving the trial, he went through the rest of his routine in a daze. He still trained with instructor Grendel, though the focus had shifted to using the staff and navigating the forest. He had a nap and joined the girls for lunch.

  After contemplating the problem for a few days, Felix had narrowed his options to three. He could try to get fast enough to deliver the owl meat to Knucklehead before it went bad.

  He could find a way to keep Knucklehead alive while they captured a slicer. Or lastly, he could get better at finding ingredients in the forest.

  He ruled out trying to get the panther’s meat. In all his attempts, he’d come to think of it as a timer on his attempt rather than a genuine option. If he couldn’t keep Knucklehead safe from the slicers, there was no way he was keeping him safe from the spiked monstrosity.

  After speaking to instructor Grendel, he had to rule out getting the owl meat to Knucklehead in time. There was no easy way for him to increase his speed anymore. It would take months more training, and he wouldn’t get much faster. He couldn’t risk going through that only to still be too slow.

  That left protecting Knucklehead or finding ingredients, which still left him with a problem. No amount of staff training was going to help protect Knucklehead when the slicers could shoot strings that sliced clean through trees. Even if they managed to catch a slicer, there was no guarantee it would be good enough.

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