LOCATION: THE CRUCIBLE
PLANET: LAPIS DIVINUS, ORION LUMINARY INSTITUTE
YEAR: 1 | DAY: ?? | TIME: ??
After another desolate, dreamless sleep, Kaela woke.
She put her armor back on and checked herself in the mirror, pulling her hair into a tight ponytail. The armor was clean now, and felt much better to put on.
The caked-on blood had made it feel quite stiff. That self-cleaning mechanism took time, but it sure worked wonders.
“One last time,” she said. “One last push and then it’s time to get back to school.”
Assuming this floor would contain another boss, she pushed the door open and stepped out of the safe room.
She heard the door close behind her, but then it disappeared from view, stranding her in the middle of a dark forest.
“What the fuck is going on?” she whispered.
Kaela spun around to check her surroundings. It was dark, and the clouds shielded the land from what little twilight there might have been.
The wind blew softly, punctuated by sudden gusts that lasted only moments before settling back into softer breezes.
There was no System message this time giving her any sort of direction or objective.
She crouched lower and focused her senses.
The crunching of leaves far to her left drew her attention.
Kaela remained still. She heard more crunching, then more. Whoever or whatever was moving through the brush a hundred feet away, there was a lot of them.
She wanted to go investigate, but knew she would draw attention to herself, so instead she waited. And watched.
As her eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness and the sounds of the forest, she mentally eliminated all the background noise and finally realized what it was.
A pack of wolves.
Shit, a pack is usually six or eight.
This was a… platoon?
She chuckled to herself, but counted at least fifteen or twenty. It was hard to tell in the dark and from a distance.
Since the wolves all seemed to be moving together toward something, Kaela decided to follow.
She remained far behind, each step in the dried brush painstakingly slow to avoid detection.
She was glad she’d decided to shower. The blood that had covered her armor and hair for weeks before last night would have certainly alerted the wolves.
“Not to mention, I was definitely tired of looking like a complete savage,” she thought, continuing to stalk the wolves.
They moved much slower than she would have expected, forcing her to keep an excruciatingly slow pace as she followed.
Finally, they neared the edge of the forest, and a village appeared in the distance.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The trees had been cleared for quite a ways around the small town, which Kaela now realized was a wise decision.
The wolves gathered at the edge of the woods, still invisible to anyone who might be watching. They didn’t move. Didn’t sit. Just stood absolutely still, their breath barely visible in the chilly night against the backdrop of the well-lit village.
Speaking of lighting, Kaela could now see that there were indeed eighteen wolves, all with wiry black fur and ferocious red eyes.
One of them was whole head taller and had dark gray fur but the same red, glowing eyes.
The Alpha, she thought.
It was clear that this oversized wolf pack was preparing to attack the village.
Kaela could now see people milling about in the town, lighting torches on poles embedded into the ground, spaced every few feet. Three warriors with swords and axes were beginning to form ranks at the only entry point she could see from where she was, still deep in the woods.
Two rangers with bows squatted on rooftops, their quivers packed to overflowing with arrows.
She could hear women rushing children into the homes, shushing their cries and whimpers.
“Am I supposed to save the village from the wolves?” she wondered.
But as if they could hear her thoughts, six wolves charged out of the forest and into the clearing.
Their breath huffed in heavy snorts as they ran hard, zig-zagging side to side to avoid arrows.
But Kaela could see right away that the rangers weren’t very good, and most of the arrows would have missed anyway. Or failed to do much damage if they had hit.
They did manage to injure one of the wolves, however, leaving five left to storm the makeshift barricades.
Kaela looked back at the forest. There were still twelve wolves left. She thought about attacking them, but wasn’t confident she could take them all down.
And, as she looked over at the village, she didn’t feel confident that these people would be able to provide much backup.
Frustrated at her inability to help the village or stop this attack, Kaela remained still, trying to find a way out of the situation.
“When no decision is obvious, remain still until an opportunity presents itself.”
It was a mantra her combat trainers had drilled into her while growing up. But Kaela also knew the continuation to that rule: When no opportunity presents itself, create one.
She was certain that the other twelve would attack and overrun the village any minute now, probably killing everyone there. Including the women and children.
She would have to at least try to intervene.
“At least the High Warden said we can’t actually die in The Crucible,” she muttered. “To be defeated while trying to save children isn’t such a bad thing, right? Maybe I’ll get extra points in my evaluation. The ‘go out with a bang’ bonus.”
Kaela made up her mind and prepared to attack the twelve. She figured if she could maintain the element of surprise, she might be able to take down the Alpha before the rest mauled her to death.
The villagers were clashing with the remaining five wolves that had attacked them. The wounded one had returned to the forest, and was now whimpering and licking its wounds.
Kaela found it strange that the other wolves seemed to offer no help or sympathy.
She wasn’t an expert, but she thought the other members of the pack would console and help clean the wound. These were strange beasts.
She also wasn’t sure why the Alpha sent only six and kept the others hidden. Why not attack with a superior force and ensure your victory?
Meanwhile, back in the town, the rangers had taken down two more wolves, while the warriors were each engaged with the final three.
They took quite a bit of damage, but in the end they were able to defeat the final wolves. One of the warriors appeared grievously injured, but Kaela couldn’t tell from this far how serious it really was.
She was about to make her move, when the Alpha growled in a low tone. He turned and began running away from the village, back into the forest.
The others followed.
“What the hell is going on?” Kaela wondered. “Wolves don’t behave like that…”
She decided to make herself known to the villagers and find out what she could.
If the System wasn’t going to give her any hints what her objecting here was, maybe the villagers could.
She yelled out from deep within the forest.
“Hey! Don’t attack! I want to talk!”
She inched forward into the clearing and allowed the light from the torches to illuminate her.
Then she leapt to the side to avoid two arrows that had been shot right at her.
“What’s the matter with you?” she shouted. “I come in peace!”
She heard a bunch of grumbling and low whispers. Then a single man yelled out to her.
“Step forward into the light. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
Kaela walked forward a few paces, ready to phase into the aether if needed.
“What am I doing here?” she muttered. “I have no fucking clue…”