Pok, our new Trailblazer, led the way. His Fire Eyes could see heat like my Spectral Vision. Juth wants us to all stay together. There were only two days until the Lieutenant got back.

Personally, I really wanted to explore more. This trial has more to be taken, especially after giving Tāwai Excruciating Screech. I think that is going to become his favourite skill.

The Sarge was following the Locator, and the first thing we found was Fire mage Norm’s body. It was in a blackened area and was half eaten.

Sarge examined it. “Rat bites. The eating happened after he died.” That was a good thing in my book. She got out a knife and dug into his shoulder. I saw her dig out an arrowhead. “Other sapient hunters did the killing.”

Suda came out of the woods. “There is blood leading that way. I am not sure whose it is.”

“Locator agrees and up,” Juth said. “They probably targeted Norm. He was probably the most dangerous. Anyone fall?”

Tāwai darted down.

“Scout the trail,” Juth told Suda, “Pok can lead us.” Suda disappeared again.

Tāwai appeared with a spatial bag. He dropped it for Juth. “Burned, burned, burned. Lizardkin.”

She examined the bag. “Looks like Norm got one. “Not a lot here. Let's move. Lizardkin will be in a family group.”

Tāwai flew ahead. We set off at a run.

Fifteen minutes later, we passed Cybil, the other assistant's body. The body had been stripped of anything of value.

Pok gave Juth some sort of signal, and she gave another signal. Joe moved up to the front with her, and their shields were up. Pok led two other guards to the left, and then I heard sounds of fighting.

The guards were obviously moving in a prepared formation as much as they could do in the trees.

Juth looked at Myantha, Hilke and me, “Guard the non-combatants.” Then she was off.

Myantha took charge, and we moved to where we had a thick branch at our backs, and we were not easily visible.

That also meant we couldn’t see far. I laid out some warded shields beyond our cover and covered them with leaves, but they were not well hidden.

I also switched to Spectral Vision (Seethru), which allowed me to penetrate the leaves better. The Heat would highlight body heat, but Reptiles and similar cold-blooded creatures don’t have much body heat. Rob hid in camouflage above us.

“What do you know about Lizardkin?” I asked Myantha quietly. “How big a group?”

“Probably a tribal hunting group. No less than five, maybe up to ten. Older ones train younger ones. Scales, teeth and claws. They mostly use spears; obviously, there is at least one archer.”

“Juth’s chances?” I ask.

“Hard to tell. Surprise counts for a lot. They can’t be at a high level, or they would have left no survivors. I would suggest that our people killed at least one and escaped a trap to run. Juth is good. I know the guard likes to hit hard and fast, so I would rate her chances as very good.”

I nodded. That made sense. I kept scanning the area. Tāwai is watching the area between us and the fight. It is possible he might pick up some fallen items from the edge of the fight. He is good, but Pok and Suda would have to be distracted to miss him.

I waited, scanning and cloaked.

I picked up a movement with Spectral Vision. I used Voice Throw to whisper in Myantha’s ear, “One to your left, 30m.”

She was also in stealth and slowly repositioned. I could sense the Lizardkin’s tongue flicking, tasting the smells. He/she/it would know we were here somewhere. It bent down to brush the leaves off the ward shield they found, but that was enough. It was set to trigger on contact with a high mana object, and the claw of a sapient was enough. This was an eclipse ward, and a flash of darkness came and went. Myantha and I had both moved in that instance.

The Lizardkin immediately withdrew its claw, dived to the side, and ran. Tāwai’s Excruciating Screech rang out, and it stumbled. I Power Threw my spear, catching him mid-stumble. The spear pierced his shoulder through the scales. I activated my Provoking Aura to get his attention, not that he could see me as I was still cloaked. However, he looked, and this let Myantha strike. She was wisely going for penetration against the scales, and it shuddered as her twin blades stabbed its back. I think one must have severed its spine as it collapsed, and she stabbed into the brain.

She rolled away and went back into stealth as I moved and scanned the area. We had been loud, and loud attracted attention.

We make a good team.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

After a few minutes of silence and no movement, Tāwai landed on the corpse and picked its pockets. I saw a claw flash, and he flew off with a bag.

About fifteen minutes later, I heard the whistle of the pass tune. I sensed Myantha sniff with her Scent Tracking. A couple of seconds later, Suda stepped out.

“I was tracking that one, thanks,” she said, nodding to the corpse.

“You got them all then?” I asked, dropping the cloak.

“Yeah. Austin is treating the wounded, but no more deaths. It looks like they were snatched by the trial while on a day hunt as they didn’t have a lot.”

“So they probably attacked for the supplies?” I asked.

“That is what the Sarge thinks.”

“Steal it, Steal it,” Tāwai chimed in.

“We probably could have sold some if they made an offer,” I said, looking sideways at Tāwai. “We going to head up there?”

“No, wait here. There is a place for a camp not far back this way,” Suda said.

It was over an hour later when the Guards arrived, and we moved out. Austin looked like he was suffering mana exhaustion.

We travelled for about an hour, and the guards were dealing with any issues.

We eventually got to a trunk and moved up several branches, and there was a wide, sheltered area. We set up a camp.

There were only two deaths and one lost arm so far in this Trial. We should be thankful it is so low. I am wondering why I signed up for this again.

Stealing things is never without risk. Back in Slyhill's safety, the risk seemed manageable. I don’t know how I forgot that Trials are out to kill you. I didn’t forget. Maybe it was the greed. Maybe it was the influence of my classes. All three of my classes. Pilferer brings the Greed, Seeker brings the how, and Spectral Slayer brings the confidence that I could not only do this but also kill my way to survival.

“How did you get in here, Tāwai?” I ask.

“Flee, Flee. Hunted into the hunter trial.”

I put some seeds on my palm for him to peck. I leaned back against Rob. “Our teamwork is coming along fine, but we need to work on your skills and our goal here.”

“Shinies, shinies.”

I flipped him a silver coin, which he caught in his beak. “Our coordination is coming along fine. I have a lot of the Strike Skills but few higher-powered ones. I need to work on the light version of Frostshade Rend, and you need to work on the air version.”

I got out Shadowbane. Lightreaver is for shadows, and Shadowbane is for light skills. If shadows are about absorbing energy, then light is about radiating energy. Radiant Strike is called that for a reason. Cutting Light is the radiant light focussed into a small beam. Flash is a burst of strong light.

My images also use light, and light comes in many colours. I started manipulating light on Shadowbane in various colours. Then, I ordered the colours in the order of the rainbow. The darker colours, Violet, Indigo and blue, were shorter or quicker than the yellow, orange and reds.

“Pretty, pretty,” Tāwai chirped.

“Yeah,” I said, “but no damage.”

Before I could get very far, there was a commotion. Alistern and Zeek were back. Zeek split off to the side and started eating while Alistern spent a long time with Juth getting updated.

A meeting was called.

Alistern stood and said, " Congratulations on making it this far, and a special congratulations on those who have advanced. We are sorry to hear of Norm and Cybil.” He paused in respect. “We scouted the boss, and I discussed it with the Sergeant. The boss is different.”

He tossed a shard of stone on the branch in front of us. The shortest edge was curved. The other two edges were generally triangular with rough, broken edges. Part of a pattern was engraved on it, along with some symbols. I assumed they were a language, but they were not a language I knew. My Lore Skill was soaking it in and wanting more.

Alistern continued, “This is part of the boss quest. We have to hunt out the other pieces to complete this tablet, or whatever it is. We don’t know if it is round, oval, or just has one rounded edge. We don’t know how many pieces there are, although Zeek thinks another six to eight.” He stopped to look around. “This piece was guarded by a giant ape. We stole it out from under his ass, almost literally. I doubt they are all going to be that easy.”

I watched Alistern, and I doubted that whatever they did to get that piece was easy.

“I figure we have two people here with the skills to hunt them down. Zeek and Marvin, if Marvin is willing.”

I gave him a nod. This was my speciality, and I would not miss the chance to level up Seeker several times.

“That means two teams. It will be dangerous. We have already had deaths. We will travel to the nearest exit, and those who don’t want to participate will establish a base camp. If things go wrong, they can exit, and we will find them when we exit. Zeek says this Trial is not wandering very fast. Those who want to participate will divide into two groups and hunt out the pieces. We will move out toward the exit in an hour. Come and let me know if you want to participate, and I will share the quest. It is always worth it to participate, but it is dangerous.”

Alistern had already taken my nod as acceptance, and I got a quest notification.

Forest Hunters Trial: Completion Quest.

Locate the puzzle pieces and assemble the stone.

Bonus objective: Solve the mystery.

Reward: +5000 XP per piece. Other rewards are dependent on participation.

Accept Quest? Y/N

There is not a lot of detail there. The academics will want in on this, but only the solving the mystery part, I bet. I am still not going to get to work with Zeek. The guy fascinated me. I am sure I could learn a lot from him.

Now that I had the quest, I concentrated on my Seekers Intuition and had several directions come to my notice. It was hard to tell how many pieces there were. I picked one and tried to sense what might be at the end. I was picking up a little more than just the item I was seeking. This one had the impression of a dangerous predator, but only a singular predator. I don’t know how much to trust it, but it is something, and I hope that as my skill levels, I will get more information.

I picked another one, and this was higher up, and there were definitely multiple dangers and wind. I might choose that one as Myantha and Tāwai could counter air attacks, assuming Myantha was coming.

“Get off your butt, Marvin,” Juth said roughly. “You have that fancy spear, and we have half an hour. Let’s see where your skills are at.”

I am sure there were some pitying looks from nearby guards.