Sophia tried to look down and see herself, but all she saw was a very heavy mist that made it hard to see the ground. That had to be what she looked like right now, a person-shaped mist.
Looking down also felt weird. She could still see ahead of herself; it was like seeing out of her peripheral vision because she wasn’t paying attention to it, but it was still there, in the corner of the eye that she didn’t have.
So was everything behind her. Sophia didn’t have to move to see; she could just see everything.
It was too much. Everything blurred and mixed together.
Sophia shook her head and tried to focus. She knew she wasn’t blinking rapidly to clear her vision, but at the same time she sort of was. Her surroundings cleared and she was looking forward again. She could still sort of see other things around herself, but as long as she didn’t focus on anything else, she didn’t get turned around.
“That’s not any of the Abilities I’ve seen before.” Larryt’s voice sounded a little odd, like he was farther away than he actually was. Sophia was glad she could hear at all; if things were a bit muffled, that was a small price to pay. “It’s a little like Cloud Body. That’s a defensive Ability; for all that we’re the Cloud Clan, almost everyone prefers Mistform, because you’re very hard to find. Cloud Body’s fast, but using it in a fight takes longer than learning Mistform. But that’s not Cloud Body, your clouds are too dark.”
“It’s called Storm Phase,” Sophia admitted. Her voice seemed to echo. Her voice reminded her of the way the Hungering Spark sounded. That made sense since it was always in Storm Phase except for its tongue.
Sophia tried to partially materialize. As she more than half expected, it was all or nothing for her, at least without more practice. She staggered as the world snapped back to normal around her. She steadied herself on a tree and took a deep breath.
She hadn’t even moved, but she felt tired like she’d spent the entire time running. That happened on her first test of the Martial Technique, as well, but at least it seemed to kick in only after she released it; she’d just have to make sure she didn’t fall out of it in the middle of a fight. She’d be fine in a moment, as soon as she caught her breath.
“Storms?” Larryt faded out of sight. Unlike Sophia’s Ability, Mistform didn’t seem to affect his voice. “I don’t know if that’s close enough or not. There’s an area that very few teams can reach without help; Cloud Body can make it far easier. I’ll tell you about it if you get far enough in the Challenge.”
“What do you mean, if we get far enough in the Challenge?” Dav looked thoughtful. “Is there a point we shouldn’t go past since we’re low level?”
Larryt was barely visible enough for Sophia to see him shake his head. “It’s a Leveled Challenge, nothing depends on level. It’s not like any other Challenge you’ve ever been in. Let’s get moving and I’ll tell you about it as we travel.”
Larryt started with the history of the Challenge, beginning with where it came from and some of the famous people who figured out how it worked. It was somewhat interesting, but it didn’t seem relevant to trying to complete the Challenge. She perked up a bit when he started to describe the structure of the Challenge. The very first thing he mentioned was that there was no combat at all in the Challenge; instead, it was a series of tasks or puzzles.
Sophia found it very interesting that this was a Challenge with no fighting. That happened occasionally in dungeons back home, but she’d gotten the impression that it never happened in the Broken Lands. When she asked, Larryt admitted that he’d overstated the lack of fighting; it wasn’t that there wasn’t any, but none was required. When Sophia asked him what that meant, all he was willing to say was that there were choices in the dungeon and fighting was never required.
Since Larryt had been through it before and they hadn’t, he could guide them but not solve puzzles or direct them too much on their tasks; if he did, it would count as a failure for all of them. There would also be a “spirit guide” provided by the Challenge that would tell them what the Challenge thought they needed to know, but the Cloud Clan always sent a guide as well. The spirit’s guidance was more limited than what Larryt was allowed to provide.
Sophia wondered if there was a benefit to going in blind if they managed to figure it all out anyway. Her guess was that there probably was, based on the way the corpsevine Challenge worked out, but that required being able to figure it out without hints. “How much help do you give?”
“As little as I can and still let the team through,” Larryt answered easily. “The less help you need, the better the rewards are supposed to be. There’s usually one or two teams each year that get a lot farther than anyone else and get poor rewards even though their guide says they didn’t help much, but it’s true for everyone else.”
Sophia could think of several reasons that might happen. Lying about how far they’d gotten or about how much help their guide gave was definitely at the top of the list, as was downplaying whatever rewards they’d received. Getting knowledge they shouldn’t have before they entered was also a possibility, though Sophia didn’t know how the Challenge would know. The one thing she could definitely say about it was that if outside knowledge made the rewards worse, that was definitely one way to discourage looking for information before you entered.
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It definitely made her more hesitant to ask questions.
Larryt was completely willing to tell them that they’d start in a foggy forest and that he didn’t know what the first task would be. It could be anything from solving a maze with surprises, whatever that meant, to finding the right objects somewhere in the area to qualify to move on. After that, they’d move to other areas and other tasks.
Sophia asked if using her aura was important. It seemed like it should be, since that was the excuse the apothecary Hinraeth used to ask for a Challenge trade.
His answer was less than helpful.
“It can be,” Larryt agreed. “I don’t have good aura perception, but I’m told it can help a lot with some of the tasks. I shouldn’t tell you how even if I knew, but I have to admit that I’m not sure which ones it matters for.”
With that, Larryt returned to describing in extremely general terms what they’d see once they were inside. He added so many qualifiers that the only thing Sophia could say for certain about the Challenge based on his description was that it took place in a forest. Everything else seemed subject to change as they moved through the Challenge.
Sophia was relieved when he moved on to talking about the rewards. The Challenge apparently awarded a small number of Wisps based mostly on how many stages they passed. If all you did was the assigned tasks, that was all you got. Larryt didn’t want to talk about how any of the rewards were achieved, but he said he’d try to direct them towards where they should look as much as he could when they got there.
Sophia suddenly had another possible guess as to why some groups might emerge with strangely low rewards: was it possible they’d concentrated on doing only the obvious? Maybe their Clan guides didn’t help them enough because they didn’t direct them at the other things they should have done?
“The reward we value the most is the Abilities,” Larryt continued. “I know of five that can be learned from the Challenge. Most people take several attempts to learn any Ability, but you can certainly try for more than one if you want. There are three people I know of in Cloud Clan who managed to learn two Abilities in a single Challenge.” Larryt sounded proud of his clanmates.
“How many times had they tried before?” Amy sounded doubtful.
“Ayri learned two Abilities on her first time in the Spirits of the Woods Challenge,” Larryt countered.
Sophia suppressed a snicker at the fact that he didn’t mention how many times the others had visited. They clearly hadn’t done as impressively as Ayri.
“How many tries did it take you to learn Mistform?” Dav asked. “It looks useful, even if I’m not sure it’s the right thing to add to my kit.”
“Three,” Larryt answered easily. “Good enough that once I master Solidify, I can try for another Ability. I probably won’t be coming back here for it; none of the other Abilities in the Spirit of the Woods Challenge are worth the Wisps for the Ability Slot for me. I’m not sure which one I’ll try for. Most scouts with Mistform pick up Concentrated Strike, but I don’t want any of the second upgrade Vocations that branch off of it. Draining Touch is…”
Larryt stopped in the middle of his sentence and seemed to flush a little. “You aren’t interested in my build. I should be telling you about the Challenge anyway. Anyone from Cloud Clan would know, but the Abilities we know of are Cloud Body, Mistform, Spirit Sight, Spirit Shriek, and Stunning Touch. Cloud Body and Mistform are together; there should be a third Ability there, but no one has managed to learn it. It’s probably a different form of Resolidify, which is why no one learns it; you can’t use it until you have Mistform. Maybe there’s something more to it, but it’s not worth the Challenge runs when I already have Resolidify.”
“Why does it normally take multiple attempts to learn an Ability?” Dav asked slowly. “Does it have something to do with why you’re confident we won’t have to camp overnight in the Challenge?”
Larryt nodded. For once, it was easy to see his motions because he was completely visible. “It’s a Stable Challenge. They all have something that makes you keep going. In Spirits of the Woods, if you stay in one place for too long, the spirits gather. If you don’t keep moving, they will remove you from the Challenge. It depends on how well you do before the plaza, but you usually have less than an hour to study Mistform or Cloud Body.”
“That’s one of the things that makes the Woodwraith Challenge valuable,” Amy added. “Multiple groups enter at once and as long as any of them keep moving, the area near the Wraithtree can be fairly safe, which lets a few people stay there for hours as long as they have people guarding them. That’s why one escorted slot in Woodwraith is worth a team slot with a guide here.”
“I doubt I’ll ever have the chance to run Woodwraith for myself,” Larryt said with a chuckle. “If I did, I’d probably be one of the mushroom collectors; that’s how we usually use the slots we trade for in Woodwraith. I think Hinraeth was trading for an escorted slot, though, probably for Ayri.”
Larryt shook his head. “Woodwraith is a completely different sort of Challenge from Spirits of the Woods, a lot longer and with more options. Spirits of the Woods doesn’t let you do different things at once. In fact, if you move past the earlier choices quickly, you have more time at the later ones. Most Cloud Clan groups try to pick up Cloud Body or Mistform, so that doesn’t help, but you might have a better chance at learning the later Abilities if you hurry past the plaza.”
He frowned in thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Stunning Touch will be easy for Sophia to reach, but Dav and Amy probably can’t get there, so you should skip it. It’s not that useful without Mistform, since you have to stay in contact with whatever you’re trying to stun. I think you probably want to spend your time on Spirit Sight or Spirit Shriek. Spirit Sight makes auras partially visible, while Spirit Shriek harms anything that hears it unless they have a Spirit Ability.”