“I thought you said you knew where you were going? We’ve been running in circles around this forest for three hours now and we still no closer to finishing our quest.”
Complained a despondent Keegan about Josh’s inability to track.
“Well if you are so sure about it then why don’t you start tracking?”
“I’m not the tracker, you are.”
The rest of the Sunkiss team stayed wisely quiet not wanting to get involved in the inter-team politics. Truthfully, they were all feeling a bit wary and probably needed a bit of a rest.
“Keegan, why don’t we take a break? We probably all need one by now”
Macie, the quieter of the group spoke up for the first time in a while causing everyone to goggle at her in amazement.
“Ha, I knew it!”
Exclaimed William.
“There’s the proof, she is not a Gollum; she can speak.”
“Ha-ha very funny.”
Said Macie while pulling a face at him.
“If I have to kill another Forest Rabbit… Where are they all coming from? I swear I’ve never seen so many before.”
Complained Josh. He collapsed to the ground and the rest of the team followed him, not waiting for Keegan to issue any commands telling them to sit.
“Argh, at this rate we will never finish the exam.”
Macie complained. The others in the Sunkiss team didn’t say as much, but they all agreed in principle. The day proved to be relatively fruitless other than the constant forest Rabbit onslaught they endured.
Sunkiss, the auspicious name they labelled their team, consisted of five members: Two vanguard fighters, a tank, one reasonably accurate archer and a cranky mage. The two aptly named fighters, Josh and Keegan did both the scouting and fighting depending on the situation, whether the fighting was between the two of them or against an enemy. William, the only stable male in the group acted as the tank and also protected their support, Aaryan and Macie, the mage and archer respectively.
All five of the Sunkiss team first started in the adventurer guild the previous year. None of them could claim to come from a wealthy family which meant all of them needed to follow the adventurer apprenticeship program.
Noble families could afford expensive trainers, normally renowned or retired adventurers looking to make a bit of money outside of the guild. As a result, they were better prepared on a skill level. If their families owned a bit of land, they might even have some beasts in a forest to hunt and train on.
As for the rest, the dangerous nature of the job meant that intensive training became all the more critical in keeping adventurers alive, especially during the first years when most newbie trainees thought they were indestructible and died.
To prevent unnecessary deaths, the Hafeld adventurer Guild in conjunction with the city, initiated a program to train up new adventurers and hopefully to better prepare them for the extraordinary challenges they faced on a regular basis.
All newbie adventurers were sponsored for the first year of their training. Following a successful apprenticeship and final exam, the new adventurers returned their sponsors investment by repaying a small part of their future income back to the guild. In that way, even the poorest person could become a successful adventurer.
Sunkiss, found themselves in their final exam embarking on their maiden journey into the northern forests.
“Hey Keegan, what you think we should do after this?”
Asked Aaryan, her veiled apprehension betrayed by her fidgety hands.
“I don’t think we should rush. We still have an entire week to complete our quest and being hasty now will only make it more difficult for us.”
“I don’t want to mess this up. I’ve only got one shot at this and I need to make it work.”
Josh on the other hand, battled to integrate into a team. To some extent is scouting ability allowed him to express his freedom in choosing his own actions outside of the team while still contributing to it. But his lack of teamwork let him down when working as a vanguard.
“I think you’re stressing too much.”
Macie said.
“What do you know?”
William quietly watched the usual bickering between their team. He wished they could all get on better with each other and in some ways, he thought it could still happen.
“Hey William, what’s up? What you thinking?”
Keegan sat down on the log next to him. It seemed him and Josh formed a temporary truce. Keegan He often asked William’s thoughts on issues and that time seemed no different.
“Have you ever wondered why the guild put us together? I mean we are such different personalities.”
“Yeah, I thought about it a lot.”
“And?”
“I think it’s part of our test.”
“How’s that?”
“Subjugating forest beasts is only one part of being an adventurer. Think about it, if we can’t do something as simple as working together how could we ever hope to overcome the other complex challenges.”
William didn’t answer, but Keegan’s question intrigued him.
“I hate to disturb you lovebirds’ moment but you’re the leader, what are we planning to do?”
Asked Macie.
“I think that we need to camp here. It seems that by pure luck we found a good camping spot. There’s only half a day left. Why don’t we have something to eat then explore our surroundings and perhaps get a better idea of where to find our target.”
No one seemed to challenge him on that, not thinking of a better idea. Sunkiss were undeniably good at making camp and half decent food. Perhaps because each person could act individually yet contribute to a whole. Distraction, and the fact that they were not under combat stress at the time probably contributed to the calm that descended on them as they each completed their pre-allocated tasks.
Keegan couldn’t deny that when the going got tough, Sunkiss outperformed the other teams. Unfortunately, there eclectic natures meant personality sometimes rubbed each other the wrong way.
“Hey Keegan. I hope you realise it’s my good scouting skills that found this place.”
Which reignited the bickering.
Many hours later when darkness already descended and the sounds of the forest serenaded the stars of the night sky, Keegan sat on the first watch while the others slept. He didn’t sit idle however, he stirred a cooking pot sitting over the campfire coals. He decided to prepare breakfast early. He wanted the team to start first thing in the morning, and preparing the meal in advance meant less time wasted getting ready to go.
The wafting food smells did create a side effect though, more than enough forest denizens made an appearance while we watched. No doubt following the cooking aroma. Keegan added to the pot the root vegetables he’d been peeling.
During his watch a few ravenous looking forest rabbits, and a couple of wolves already made an appearance. He thought he saw a white poledeer for a moment, which was unusual because they only appeared much deeper in the forest.
They never needed to fear the night beasts because of the defence shield they used. A level V shield protected the camp that night, courtesy of the guild master who personally donated it to the team for the duration of the exam. It wasn’t favouritism, he offered similar to all the other initiate teams. No living creature could penetrate it, not because it acted as a physical barrier but rather as a nerve agent in that it seriously disrupted the nervous system of any living creature intersecting the barrier. Any beast or human trying to get through the shield quickly found themselves paralysed as their nervous systems shut down, along with any autonomous body processes like breathing. The shield only operated for a period of six hours at a time before needing a recharged by Macie’s aethereal energy. For all their faults none could say Sunkiss skimped when it came to their protective gear.
Each team could select an advanced tool to select as part of the exam. Some teams opted for better offensive gear, like weapons and others for advanced healing potions. But Sunkiss realised that a good night sleep offered far more advantage than fancy swords in tired hands. A shield seemed a benign choice, but from Keegan’s perspective and judging by the loud snores of his fellow team members, it already bore fruit.
Apparently, Keegan’s option to camp earlier that day and reconnoitre the area paid dividends. They soon discovered the dungeon they were looking for but opted not to delve into it until the next day in order to better prepare.
Despite their small success, something about the day’s events bothered Keegan. The number of beasts they encountered seemed unusual. Even the normally overeager Josh found himself overwhelmed by the number of forest rabbits and opted to stand rear guard for a while to recover his stamina. At least Macie and Aaryan got an opportunity to shine and quickly showed why they were considered the top support duo in all the initiates that year. Between the two of them, they beat Josh’s catch by thirty-four rabbits.
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Even the presence of the wolves that night seemed out of place. Despite his gut feeling, there was nothing he could put his finger on. Besides they were in the middle of an exam, and he wasn’t going to turn around and go home purely on a gut feeling. But Keegan knew that this taking precautions never hurt anyone. He decided the next morning they would carefully progress to their target dungeon.
“My gosh, Keegan this stew is fantastic.”
Gushed Macie she crammed another spoonful of into her mouth.
“Juft whut did you ged up do laft night?”
“Gee Macie, I know we need to get moving this morning but there’s no need to choke on your food.”
“Hey Macie if you choke can I try my healing skill out on you. I recently purchased a reviving skill that I’m dying to try out, but it needs someone to be near death, so you’ll need to let you turn blue first before I use it.”
“Stuff you Josh, that’s not funny.”
Macie’s sudden retort caused the others team members to quieten. What started as nervous tension developed into a form of team depression. Keegan stepped in.
“Okay team listen up. We’re going to delve the dungeon today and we only need to show evidence that we’ve been at least one level down to pass the exam.”
“That’s not true Keegan. We still need to park in the forest for the rest of the week.”
“Yes Josh, you know what I mean.”
Josh pulled and indignant look and pouted like a three-year-old boy. Normally that would have got the team laughing but everyone seemed a little on edge with his casual attitude. Keegan continued his explanation.
“I’m sure you already know what to expect in this dungeon, but as we learnt in the guild, assumptions lead to death. The creatures we can expect to find goblins, giant rats with the odd stray forest wolf. We know what to do, we’ve trained for this. I want us to be careful there’s no need to rush and that means you Josh.”
Josh naturally took offence to being singled out, making it clear in no uncertain terms.
“You’re a real idiot Keegan.”
“The dungeon doesn’t care. It won’t have pity on you or give you a second chance. You know just as well as us that we need to work as a team.”
Josh resented Keegan treating him like a child.
“I don’t have to accept this, I’m not a child. I’m starting to regret ever joining this team. If it wasn’t for Melody asking me to join you, I would have told you to get stuffed.”
It took a while for the team to come down. Mitigating stress in a mature way seemed to be a bridge too far for Sunkiss to overcome in one dungeon delving session. Keegan put it down the situation to nerves and decided not to worry about it. Combat promise to release any pent-up frustrations the team might have.
When they approached the dungeon, Keegan’s uneasiness felt worse, but he still couldn’t resolve himself to react to it without any evidence. The adventurer guild selected that dungeon for its simplicity, not wanting to overcomplicate the exam and preferring that team focus on their goal. They wouldn’t put Sunkiss in uncertain danger if they weren’t certain of what waited for them in dungeon.
“William will take the lead seeing that we haven’t dealt with this dungeon in our training.”
“Why are you doing that? William has never taken point before and now you expect him to know what he’s doing?”
“I think Josh is right. William might not know what he’s doing, do we want to put him in that situation?”
Commented Aryan, entering the argument for the first time.
For the first time Keegan felt at a loss for words. Normally Aaryan never opposed his decisions. And now that she had it through doubt into his thinking.
“Okay, then what you guys suggest?”
After some haggling, they opted to enter the dungeon using the standard team formation they were typically familiar with starting with the two leading vanguards, followed by the tank and finally their support.
Most dungeons contained a bioluminescent moss on their walls that exuded colours typically ranging between greens and blues which negated the need for torches. Teams delving into dungeons or caves normally carried light emitting staves as emergency lighting just in case they found themselves in darkness although the luminescence lifetime of these were quite limited. This would expose a fundamental problem for the Sunkiss team later in their delve.
Sunkiss found no opposition to entering the dungeon and were able to penetrate deep into the first level, encountering only giant rats and the odd goblin, easily dispatched by Josh who seemed to be taking out all his frustrations on any beasts they encountered. Keegan felt pleased that Josh finally found a way to channel his energies. When they returned to the guild and passed their exam, he would quietly speak to the others about dropping Josh from the Sunkiss team.
Keegan forced himself to focus when a group of goblins appeared on the scene. Both he and Josh stepped forward to deal with the new threat. After they engaged the goblins in battle, the tea paused to rest a bit.
“Hey, is it just my imagination or have we been fighting a lot of goblins?”
Josh complained between each breath as he sat on the ground, his head resting on his knees.
“I counted thirty goblins the last time. That makes forty-five since we entered the dungeon.”
One of Macie’s functions in the team was to count the number of enemies they encountered or killed. To keep a record of what happened out in the field, the guild expected each team to complete a report at the end of each quest. The report contained not only a description of the events that took place but also the number of enemies encountered and dispatched. Based on the outcome of that report, teams like Sunkiss could expect payment or follow-up questions from the guild depending on the situation.
Few team members liked filling out paperwork at the end of a quest and normally those with higher intelligence found themselves ‘volunteered’ for report duty. The reason for that was simple, in the heat of battle nobody took notes with a pen and paper so people with higher intelligence were more capable of recalling events and numbers.
“That does seem to be high. I’ve never heard of any newbie teams dealing with that many goblins at one time in the dungeon.”
If Keegan’s comment intended to caution in his team, it did the exact opposite because everyone felt buoyed by the fact that they were achieving something no other initiate team had ever achieved before. If anything, he only served to instil more confidence in them.
“I’ve killed the most goblins and I’m still feeling fine. I say we carry on.”
Josh suddenly gushed enthusiasm where only moments before he could hardly catch his breath.
“Well, what are we waiting for, come on guys, let’s get going. Then we can finish this dungeon and get the heck out of here.”
Macie’s enthused voice echoed in the dungeon chamber.”
“Hey, I’m still resting. It has been a while since we rested and we need a decent break. That small enclave we passed a little while ago, we can stop there.”
“Come on lazybones, stop looking for reasons to slack off and get moving.”
Keegan kick the bottom of Aryan’s boots to help encourage her. He meant it in jest but he never realised how close to exhaustion she really was.
“You’re a bloody slave driver!”
“And you’re only discovering that now?”
Luckily the number of goblins reduced as they pressed forward. Eventually the dungeon tunnel meandered to the next lower level and the team’s morale improved as they realised that their goal lay not too far ahead of them.
At this point the situation changed. A goblin gravely injured Josh’s arm with a rusty sword on Josh’s dominant sword arm, leaving him unable to hold a sword in that hand. It was an unlucky strike, but it took them a while to stem the bleeding on his arm and bandage it up. Unfortunately, Josh’s battle proficiency reduced to the point he became a liability as a vanguard because Keegan ended up spending more time protecting Josh, and less time focused on attacking the enemy. And the goblins were not ignorant of the situation either. They quickly realised Josh’s position as the team’s weakest link and focused their attacks on him.
Keegan eventually shifted him to the rear-guard defence and with Josh unable to fully contribute in the subsequent battles, goblins started getting the upper hand during the fights. William moved forward to point and assisted an increasingly exhausted Keegan but that left Macie and Aryan more exposed to surprise attack, even with Josh behind them.
As they soon discovered, that wasn’t the end of their troubles. They entered a region of the dungeon devoid of bioluminescent moss forcing everyone to start using the light emitting staves. And they discovered something they hadn’t anticipated before. William was the first to pick up on the problem.
“Hey Keegan.”
William whispered so that the others couldn’t hear.
“I don’t want to scare the others that these light sticks don’t give much light and I can’t see much. Finding it difficult to anticipate the goblin attacks.”
Realisation dawned on Keegan that Sunkiss never practiced fighting in low light situations. In all their training they always operated in dungeons with sufficient ambient light. As if reinforcing the problem, a short while later during a brief skirmish, Keegan had a close call with one of Macie’s arrows as it narrowly grazed his head. Only Keegan’s helmet prevented the disaster when it deflected the wayward missile. Macie apologised profusely at her faux pas, but it was Josh that worsened the situation, by constantly warning her to shoot straight every time he thought she aimed wrong. The situation led to a heated argument between the two, forcing Keegan to step in before the two came to blows.
“That’s enough from the two of you. Josh shut up. Macie, you know better. We’re in the middle of a dungeon delve and you’re both bickering like children.”
“What do you know? You’re not wounded. You can’t tell me what to do.”
Shouted Josh in annoyance, Keegan always took Macie’s side.
“Yes, I can and I’m pulling the plug on this delve. We’re heading to the surface.”
“Wait. What? You can’t do that; we haven’t finished the quest!”
“You know I can. We’re in no condition to go any further and there’s no point in continuing. We’re leaving.”
Keegan turned to lead the team out and Josh leaned out to grab Keegan’s arm to stop him when a chorus of sharp whining noises filled the air.
“Goblin archers!”
Shouted William as he took cover under his shield. Everyone took cover where they could as a volley of arrows hit them.
“Where are they? I can’t see them.”
Someone shouted quicky followed by a woman’s scream.
“Will, get in front of me and cover me. We’ll go to them. Macie, try and keep those archers busy if you can.”
Only during times of extreme stress did Keegan shorten William’s name to Will. Josh took cover like everyone else. He dived behind a small rock and used his pack to further protect his head. There wasn’t much in the way of protection in the narrow confines of that tunnel. Macie didn’t have enough warning to set up a shield for them so all he could do was wait out the attack, again feeling frustrated at being helplessly wounded.
Within seconds the volley stopped, and the duo of William and Keegan gave the group of goblins something else to worry about.
“Aryan, where’s that shield?”
He shouted over the battle cacophony of goblin hoots and William’s war cry.
Josh realised that Aryan wasn’t responding and started searching for her in the darkness angry at her incompetence. He expected to find her hiding behind Macie or some rock, but he never expected to see the highlighted outline of her body lying prone in the dirt. A chill ran through him as ran up to her, noticing an ugly black arrow through the right side of her chest.
“Aryan!”
He shouted and shook her body, but she didn’t respond. He panicked and ignoring the searing pain in his arm he picked up Aryan’s limp head off the ground with both hands, but she wasn’t breathing. While holding Aryan his arms he searched for Macie and found her propped up against a wall with an arrow shaft deeply embedded into her shoulder.
By the time William and Keegan returned after dispatching the archers, they found a crying Josh still hugging Aryan in his arms and a pale looking Macie sitting against the wall.
It was late that night that a decimated Sunkist team exited the dungeon. With their quest all but abandoned, they shifted into survival mode. Aryan died in that first volley of goblin arrows, and she never stood a chance. Mages didn’t typically wear heavy armour and the little protection that Macie could afford didn’t offer much protection from such a powerful short-ranged attack. William and Keegan carried her body out, not wanting to leave her there, more from a feeling of guilt for not protecting her as much as from friendship.
Macie survived the ordeal, but the goblin arrow pierced her shoulder deeply and they couldn’t do much about it until they surfaced from the dungeon. Even then, the barbed arrow couldn’t be easily extracted. Macie experienced a lot of pain before they were able to finally remove it and needed a day of rest before she was fit enough to travel. Although the team gave both Josh and Macie healing potions, they were of lesser efficacy and only accomplished minor healing. It wasn’t for the last time that Keegan berated himself for not choosing the advance healing potions instead of the protective shield.
Josh hardly spoke through their ordeal, and he could only offer minor assistance to Macie while the bulk of the burdens fell on William and Keegan. Four days after starting the quest, they exited the northern forest. With Macie out of the picture, their protective shield couldn’t be recharged which meant both William and Keegan needed to protect the team all night and day. Only when they reached the relative safety outside the forest did Keegan run to get help while William stayed with the wounded pair. It was close to darkness when the first guards arrived on horseback with William. A much larger contingent arrived with wagons which carried the exhausted team back home under full escort and a starry sky.
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