Breakfast was nothing special, some pancakes and syrup were dished out and I wolfed mine down as fast as I could. I realized something, two people were still missing.
“Hey guys, has anyone seen Alex or Arya?” I asked and we all looked at each other.
“I think they went off last night.” Noah said and muttered under his breath, “Lucky bastard.”
Cassie’s eyes flared up, “What did you say?!” Val glared at him as well, “yeah Noah, do you want to repeat that?”
Noah stuttered but suddenly, guess who appeared? Illia appears on Sam’s shoulders, “Hey everyone.” she said happily.
Sam was freaking out, “Oh my God it’s a fucking face-hugger! Get it off! Get it off!” he screeched and stood up.
“Sam!” Illia shouted and slapped the top of his helm, the sound rang out in the air and Sam immediately stopped moving. “Calm down, it’s me.”
“Noooo that’s even worse!” he wailed and tried to slam her into a wall. Illia sighed and placed a hand out in front of her. As the wall rushed closer she closed her eyes and hit it. All their momentum stopped and Sam shook himself as we gaped in awe. “Did it work?” he asked hopefully, we quietly shook our heads and Illia said, “Now that wasn’t very nice was it?”
She lept off his head and stomped in front of him, he audibly gulped as she put her hands on her hips.
“Do you know how much damage you could have done?” she asked, he shook his head.
“Well? Do you have anything to say?” she demanded, Cassie leaned into me, “this is so great, I haven’t seen him so scared since Mom.”
It was pretty entertaining, watching a five-foot-tall elf give a giant fully armored knight a verbal thrashing.
Alex chose that moment to walk in strutting like a king, “How’s it going guys?” he asked and saw Sam and Illia, “They going at it again?”
“Again?” I asked, “you know what, forget them, where the hell were you?”
“Yeah and more importantly, where’s Arya?” Cassie added, “You better have not done something to her.”
“Don’t you worry about me,” Arya said and walked in behind him, “I’m fine, better than fine in fact.”
Alex gave me a smugly satisfied look and I shook my head, “I just hope you two know what you're doing.”
“Oh I know what I’m doing, don’t you worry,” he said and patted me on the shoulder.
I shuddered, “Don’t put your hands on me.”
Illia gave Sam one final slap on the head and disappeared, he looked over at us in a daze, “What just happened?”
“Look who it is,” a voice said, “Ryze fucking Varus.”
I sighed and turned around, “What do you want William?” I asked, William Tourel was the son of High Lord Gideon Tourel, and someone I had the displeasure to know from past experience. He was what one might consider a pretty boy, tall, lean, and handsome. He had piercing green eyes and perfectly straight white teeth. The picture of nobility and a grade-A asshole. He had some sort of personal grudge against me that I personally felt was way overblown.
“What do I want?” he asked incredulously, “I want revenge.”
I gaped at him, “Revenge? Are you fucking serious? That was four years ago, why do you still care?”
“You know why I care.”
“God quit being such a goddamn drama queen and get on with it,” I said and cracked my knuckles. “You want me to give you a refresher lover boy?”
He growled at me and ran up and took a swing. I rolled my eyes and ducked under it, his fist sailed over my head and I came up for an uppercut to his chin. He shot backwards and grinned at me, "You got slower."
Narrowing my eyes, I reached to my belt and pulled out my knife. His grin widened and he mirrored the gesture, pulling out a long thin rapier-like knife that I had been on the receiving end of several times. We circled around each other several times before I made the first move. I bolted forwards, jabbing at his stomach, he turned to the side a beat too slow and hissed in pain as my blade cut a thin line across his white button-down. He swung downwards, just barely missing my arm as I pulled back. Blood seeped through his shirt and he glared at me. "do you know how long it's going to take for me to get this stain out?"
"I couldn't care less." I spat.
"Oh, I'll kill you one of these days."
I looked down at my knife, noting the blood that was slowly being absorbed into the red blade, "I doubt it, you couldn't even beat me in the Harvest Festival last ye-." I cut off as I was sent flying straight up into the air, I fllayed around trying to find out what had happened. Beside me William gulped audibly as Ms. Mallory stormed over.
“What is the meaning of this!” she demanded, I sighed and stood still while William crossed his arms.
“I was eating breakfast and he randomly started swinging at me.” I said and she glared at him, “Is this true?”
Will shook his head, “That’s not true! He attacked me?”
She turned to the rest of the students, “What did you see?”
Most of the students looked away or didn’t respond, House Tourel and House Varus were two houses you did not mess with, but Alex didn’t care, “That little shit started swinging at Ryze, in fact, I don’t think Ryze put a finger on him.”
Sam and I looked at each other with glee as Alex realized his mistake, “I mean that little rascal!” he tried to correct himself but it was too late. She was on him in an instant and thwacked him solidly on the head.
Noah, Sam, and I laughed and cheered as Alex failed to hold in a curse, which ended with him getting another lashing. After a few more for effect, she returned her attention to us, “I will not discipline either of you for this incident as neither of you are students yet, but if I ever catch you fighting again. The punishment will be severe.” she said and dropped us. We both landed gracefully and glared at each other. I scoffed and turned around.
“Ryze, why was Tourel after you?” Cassie asked softly as I returned to my seat. She looked at me with concern and put her hand on mine, I could see Noah and Sam raise their brows in surprise but I didn’t mind them.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” I waved her off, “you know, just an old family feud.”
She stared at me, “that’s not what your conversation sounded like.”
“Damn you heard that part?” I muttered, “well, let’s just say the two of us had a disagreement at a tournament when we were kids.”
She began again but I cut her off, “listen it’s not important. He’s just a brat with a stick up his butt.”
“Hmmph,” she said, decidedly not happy but didn’t press any further. This was going to be an interesting year if I had to deal with Tourel every day. Hopefully, he wouldn’t pass initiation, knowing his spear fighting skill and trait. There wasn’t a chance he wouldn’t pass.
“Well, we should get to it then.” Sam said and dusted his hands, “Cassie, where did you say we were supposed to go?”
“You know, you have a Pad too right?” she muttered and started walking to the courtyard. We grabbed our gear and followed behind her, she stopped in front of a statue of a woman with her sword raised to the sky in defiance. There were already a few dozen people milling around so we stopped as well.
At exactly 7:00, Lancaster appeared on the stage next to Ms. Mallory. The crowd of students stirred and quieted.
“Students, today you will test yourselves in the Jade Jungles. You will be sent there through magical means and will have until 5:00 pm to return through the portal. If you fail to do so, you will have failed and will be sent home.”
Portal? I thought to myself, I had never heard of the Jade Jungles let alone a portal.
“You will create teams of four on your own. Choose wisely as these partners will be with you for the next three years. In the case that you find yourself without partners come find me or Ms. Mallory.”
The four of us looked at each other and nodded, this was shaping up quite nicely.
“Each team will elect a team leader and they shall receive a map of the jungle. Are there any questions?” he asked and looked around, several hands were raised but he ignored them.
“Very good, you will be dropped in exactly one minute,” he said and looked at his watch. People started panicking and forming groups while close to a dozen magicians surrounded the mob of students and started chanting.
“What do you think he means by dropped off?” Alex asked and put a hand on his axe. I realized that I had never spent the time to look at his weapons, he had way too many. Four axes, almost a dozen knives, and two short swords across his back along with several shields of different sizes.
“Whatever it is, it’s probably going to be rough,” I said as a map appeared in my hand. The four of us got in a huddle, I was just about to open my mouth when I got a weird feeling. It felt like we were falling, and when I looked down I noticed that we were about five hundred feet in the air.
The ground was covered in jade-colored plants and huge trees, tall mountains surrounded the area, creating a natural basin. Sam let go and started falling though he seemed to not be panicking at all. Alex was decidedly more panicked as he whistled through the air. Noah hovered in the sky with a look of concentration as he manipulated the air around him to float. I had no idea what I was going to do. My trait wasn’t going to help me here and neither was my sword.
“Noah!” I screamed and he looked down at me with worry, the ground was getting way too close and I shouted. “A little bit of help!”
I felt myself slow right before I hit the top layers of tree branches. Then I slammed into them and tumbled around and ragdolled to the ground. I hit with an oof that knocked the air out of my lungs and created a small crater around me.
Sam slammed into the ground like a fallen angel, he landed so hard that it created a minor shock wave around him and knocked down a tree. He slowly stood up as the dust settled and took off his helmet. “THAT WAS SO COOL!” he roared.
Alex created several copies as he fell that helped cushion his fall, he landed with a wet splat as the copies disappeared and he sat motionlessly. That probably hadn’t felt great.
Noah landed about a minute later, graceful as ever, and set himself on the ground and looked around, Alex rolled over swearing, and sat up.
“That has got to be the worst thing that has ever happened to me.” He groaned and rubbed his ribs. “Do you guys have any idea what it feels like to have your internal organs liquefy?”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Pffffsh, speak for yourself, that was great.” Sam said happily, Alex and I glared at him, he shrugged and Noah said, “Right so I got a good look at the surrounding area. Ryze can you give me the map?”
I felt around my pockets and pulled out a small square of paper with a map of the jungle. It wasn’t of much help as it was almost completely green, in the center was a lake that was labeled “Portal”. Surrounding it were several rivers and hills that were also named. I handed the map to Noah, “Do any of these places look familiar?”
He looked at the paper then flipped it around, then with a look of confusion. He turned it over again, “I don’t see anything.”
“WHAT!” Sam shouted and grabbed the map out of his hands and did the same thing. “Ryze are you sure that’s the right piece of paper?”
“Do I look stupid? Of course, that’s the right one,” I snapped and took the map, the directions were on both sides, “Guys, this isn’t a time to fool around.” I said and looked at Alex, he was rocking back and forth on the ground in the fetal position, “Alex?”
“Yeah just give me a moment, my body is still feeling the shock,” he whispered and kept rocking.
I sighed and handed the map back to Noah, “Noah this is serious, can you point us in the right direction?”
He looked at the paper again and shook his head, “I am being serious, the paper is blank.”
“Yeah Ryze, the map is empty I don’t see anything either. Did you hit your head too hard on the landing?” Sam asked. I glared at him, “No my head is fine thank you very much. Can you two really not see that map?”
“I am being a hundred percent serious when I tell you we can not see it,” Noah confirmed. I rubbed my head in annoyance, “Alex can you see anything?”
He looked up at the paper and shook his head, “Sorry, it’s blank to me as well.”
“I’m the only one who can see the map then.” I sighed and looked down at it. “In that case, Noah can you describe what you saw?”
Noah closed his eyes, “We’re in some sort of basin, there’s a lake in the middle with a glowing island in its center.” he said, that was probably the portal. I looked at the map, and in the direction north was a mountain that was a lot taller than the rest.
“What about a mountain?” I asked, “Where was the tallest mountain?”
He frowned in concentration, “the tallest mountain would b-” he was cut off by roaring. We all turned to place our backs to each other and Sam helped Alex up. I pulled out my sword and scanned the area around us. It was a relatively flat clearing with lots of bushes everywhere.
“Anyone got eyes on anything?” I asked and immediately a large green blur pounced on me. Time slowed and I got a better look at it, some sort of large demon cat with huge fangs and four eyes and six legs. Probably a variant of kyber, I stepped out and placed my sword directly under its throat. I couldn’t actively harm living beings while using my trait. Time returned to normal and the kyber impaled itself on my sword. The blade cut through its flesh like butter and severed the beast's spinal cord. But its momentum carried on and I braced myself as it hit me. My feet slid back several steps and I bumped into Sam’s back.
“Ryze?” he snapped around and accidentally backhanded me in the head. My ears rang as I kicked the corpse off my sword.”
“Yeah, just a cat,” I said and wiped the blade on its fur. “Stay alert there’s probably more.”
“I’ll search around,” Alex said and two copies appeared, the prime handed out two knives and the copies ran off.
“So that’s why you got so many weapons.”
“Shut up I’m concentrating.”
“Sorry,” I said, “So Noah before you were so rudely interrupted, what were you going to say?”
“Oh yeah, the tallest mountain should be right behind us, and to my left is a river shaped like an S, and to my left is a river with a large waterfall halfway from the mountain to the lake.”
“Ok, so we know we’re in the northern part of the jungle. We need to go south to reach the lake and you said an S and a waterfall?” I said and pulled the map out. “That puts us in this area here,” I said and pointed at a section of jungle that was supposed to be about seven miles from the lake.
“We’re going to have to take your word for it, oh great one,” Sam said sarcastically. “‘Cuz, none of us can see where we are.”
Alex stiffened and we all readied up, “Oh shit.” he said, “Guys, run!”
For a moment we all looked at each other, then I looked at Noah, he was to my right and I thought about it for a moment, then I ran to my left and they followed me. Behind us, we heard a hissing and the sound of a tree crashing. “Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is!” Sam shouted as we sprinted as fast as we could in the dense shrubbery.
“If you thought that was a Fuxi, then you’re right,” Alex replied.
“What the hell is a F-” I started, then turned around, the biggest serpent I had ever seen was slithering across the jungle floor at breathtaking speeds. It was mottled black and olive green with fangs longer than my legs and a forked tongue. It’s crashed straight through a tree, sending a shower of splinters at us.
“OH GOOD GOD!” I screamed and ran even faster.
“Hehe, yep that’s about what I expected,” Alex said, I had a feeling that it was catching up and decided that we should stand our ground.
“We gotta fight that thing.” I shouted, “We all got different directions, Alex send a clone forward as bait, we’ll wait for it to slow down then attack from its flanks.”
“Got it,” they shouted and we split up, Noah propelled himself into the trees. I ran to the right and hid behind some rocks. Sam took a left and ran as fast as he could away from the monster. Alex made a copy that kept on running and made a second one to boost him into a tree.
The Fuxi dinner-plate-sized eyes locked in on the copy and it lunged forwards and swallowed it whole. The moment the copy was swallowed, it turned to dust and the beast realized it had been tricked. It whipped its body around, knocking down a dozen trees and almost decapitating me. At the last moment I ducked under its tail, but then I felt a hand grab onto me and I was sent flying along with it. I looked at the hand and realized there was an arm attached to it. I followed the arm up to a hideously deformed face.
“Oh shit, what the hell!” I screamed as the thing started trying to tear my armor off me. The face screamed at me and released a spray of green mist. Time slowed and I pried myself out of its hands and floated in the air. I took the moment to look around, the Fuxi was massive, far larger than I had originally thought. It seemed to be more than two hundred feet long. Instead of a tail, the scales slowly changed into flesh and morphed into a rough approximation of a human, though it was still the stuff of nightmares. I looked at the ground and time sped back up, I felt my leg touch and I ducked into a roll as I slashed off one of its arms.
Sam leaped up and onto the monster, plunging his sword deep into its flesh. The front side hissed and the backside screamed, twisting around to face him. I heard a crack and the human head exploded in a spray of pink mist. That caused the beast to thrash its tail, almost throwing Sam off its back. Alex lunged from atop his tree and landed on its head. He thrust one of his swords into the fuxi’s eye and was thrown off. He created two copies that caught him and threw him back on and he pulled the sword out of its eye.
It released another, much larger spray of mist from its serpent head that almost caught Alex. His eyes widened and he leaped off. Sam watched Alex jump and gave the beast one last slash across the back and leaped off as well. The green mist decayed everything it touched, the grass wilted, leaves shriveled up, and the trees dried up. I shuddered at the thought of what it would do to a person.
The beast let out one more spray and shot into the jungle, “Don’t chase it.” I shouted and came to a stop. Noah stopped beside me, rifle in hand and we regrouped.
“Well that was horrifying.” he said and leaned on his weapon, “what in the world was that?”
“That my friends, was a fuxi.” Alex said and collected his knives from his copies, “they are a rather rare, incredibly dangerous type of demon.”
“Yeah, we are rather lucky that Alex picked up on it. Otherwise one of us for sure would have become dinner.”
“Well I didn’t really pick up on it, it was more like one of the copies disappeared and I panicked,” Alex said sheepishly.
“You guys hear that?” Noah asked and we quieted down. The sound of crashing water emanated from our left and we started walking in that direction.
“So if that is the waterfall, then we’re pretty close to the lake,” I said and Noah shook his head.
“That can’t be right,” he said and I motioned for him to continue, “I saw the waterfall when I was in the air. It was only a mile or so away, and the lake seemed to be at least ten miles away.”
“In that case, I really hope I was the one who was wrong and not the map,” I said.
“Well, Lancaster did mess with the signs in the city.” Sam pointed out and I couldn’t argue with that. We walked towards the sound and stopped at the edge of a cliff. It was eighty feet straight down into a large reservoir of water. The waterfall filled the air with mist and casted a massive rainbow.
“This is a problem,” I shouted over the thundering water. The cliff stretched for several miles to either side. “The map never said anything about a cliff.”
“There is a waterfall, that means there should be a cliff. It was stupid of us to think otherwise,” Noah said and we all muttered agreement.
“Any bright ideas?” Alex asked and we looked at each other.
“We could climb down,” I said and looked down at the rock wall, it was slick with water and rather smooth from centuries of erosion.
“That is a horrible idea,” Alex said, “anyone else?”
“We could jump.” Sam said and we gave him the ‘you’re shitting me’ look. He shrugged, “I’d live.”
“I didn’t think it was possible, but that was an even worse idea.”
“if you think our ideas are so bad, then why don’t you make your own.”
“Fine,” Alex said and thought for a bit, “we know Noah can just float down, Sam would just jump so we only need to get the two of us down there.”
“Hey, Noah couldn’t you just float us down?” I asked.
He shook his head, “No, at least not without a high risk of serious injury.”
“But you floated Ryze down when we first got here and that was a way longer fall, why can’t you do that again?” Sam asked.
“I really didn’t do much that time other than slow him down enough that he didn’t get impaled on a branch. He got lucky and the trees slowed him down enough to keep him alive. I don’t know about you but I don’t see any trees down there.”
“I still think we should just climb down,” I said and looked down, I could see several places where I would be able to sit down and rest. There were few handholds, but I thought I could do it.
“Maybe you can, but I would definitely fall,” Alex said and racked his head.
“See you’re the only one without a plan to get down,” Sam said and crossed his arms.
“Oh, get off my case, what are you five?”
“How about you try going down with Ryze, if you fall you can make some copies to cushion your landing and I’ll help slow you down,” Noah suggested and Alex sighed.
“I’ve got nothing better.”
Sam turned around and lept of the cliff and slammed into the ground. We shook our heads and Noah stepped off the edge as well.
“Here goes nothing,” I said and grabbed onto the ledge, I scanned the cliff face around me and made sure to have at least three points of contact like Hood taught me. I shimmied my way down to the first lower ledge. It was a small outcove just big enough for me to sit on.
“Follow my route,” I shouted up at Alex, he slowly lowered himself down and moving like a goliath with arthritis; started to climb down. The cycle repeated until we touched the bottom of the cliff thirty minutes later. My arms and legs burned and my fingers felt like they had been rubbed raw. I looked at them and they had in fact been rubbed to the point of bleeding.
Alex was no better and he quickly wrapped his fingers in bandages. “Took your time didn’t you?”
“Shut up Sam,” Alex grumbled, “not all of us can hop off cliffs like methed up monkeys.”
“We should get moving,” Noah said and we continued along the river.
“So Ryze,” Alex said, “why does Tourel hate you so much?”
“Who William?” I asked, “‘Cuz if you haven’t noticed, all the Tourels really hate Varus.”
“Yes, William.” Sam said, “he seems to have some sort of personal grudge against you. Did you like steal his girlfriend or something?”
“Not really, more like severely hurt his chances of getting one. I sort of humiliated him during the Fall Festival a few years ago.” I said and they frowned at me.
“That’s not that bad,” Alex said, I cut in, “Hehe, the thing is, I may have done it in front of every single princess and Lady in the south.”
Noah snapped, “Wait, was this four years ago at the Fall Festival tournament hosted by Osiris in Norden?”
“Yep.” I said happily, Sam and Alex turned to him, “you know about this?”
“I see why he holds a grudge.” he deadpanned and kept walking. They looked at me then at Noah and back at me again. I shrugged, “It wasn’t even that bad.”
Noah scoffed, “sure that’s the entire reason.” and kept on walking, ignoring their questioning gazes.