Day 33.
Another week had gone by.
The Rookie Hunters, while scummy in nature, did in fact return their stuff the day after they made the deal. They now had their wild artifacts: the compass and food bag, Iris’s potions, which they seemed to use half of, and their decent sum of money that had been stolen.
It seemed everything was going in their favor; they found a teacher to train them, got their stuff back and now we're ready to take on the trial of the Lost Forest.
Today was their last day with the Keeper. After this they would take a night's rest and then head out towards the trial's entrance. Hopefully this time no one would rob them halfway there.
Currently they sat in front of the Keeper as their last training session was over. They had grown a significant amount during the last three weeks.
Bo had grown into a more capable fighter, he could now hold his ground against Sera for a bit before he would eventually get overwhelmed. Soul power wasn't too much of an issue now either as he had gone out almost everyday to hunt creatures.
Sera had more control over her ember which made her a deadly fighting force. She had sparred with the Keeper which refined her techniques but there was only so much an experienced fighter could learn in 3 weeks.
Iris gained the most out of everyone here. Bo and Sera didn't see most of what she was taught as they were always out and about, but when Bo sparred with Iris he could feel the difference. She would keep her distance by poking with her staff and if Bo ever got close, she would use her slim build to worm her way to his back.
Not only could she now hold her own in a fight, but she had gained muscle and stamina. Her frame was no longer skinny, but lean and Bo could even see outlines of her muscles. She still had a ways to go to catch up to them, but she seemed to enjoy getting stronger.
According to the Keeper, Iris was one of the most focused and hard working students she had ever taught. She even joked that Iris would overtake them soon if they stopped training themselves.
Whatever the case, they were happy for Iris because she was happy with how much she had progressed.
“Alright, training is over!” The Keeper said. “Go have a big meal, and a long night's sleep before heading out tomorrow.”
“Yes Keeper!” They all shouted in response with smiles on their exhausted faces.
As they were about to leave the training room, Iris turned and asked the Keeper, “Would you like to join us?”
The Keeper thought for a moment before replying, “Sure.”
“Really you're going to join us?” Iris' eyes opened. The Keeper never ate with them, she always went to do her own things after training.
“Of course, I've heard good things about your cooking.”
They went to the main room while Iris went to the kitchen and cooked them a huge feast. Even Jorron and Keira came by and joined them. It was a jolly atmosphere as the table was full of boisterous chatter and laughter.
Night time quickly came but the celebration continued. It wasn't anything crazy, they just moved away from the dinner table and sat at the lounge, chatting with each other. The Keeper wasn't that talkative, she more so only listened and chimed in a few times but Jorron and Keira on the other hand were very talkative.
Jorron would go on about stories of his time exploring the Lost Forest and who could blame him because the stories were interesting and entertaining. Keira talked a lot about her science experiments she had conducted and this truly fascinated Iris.
Eventually the ‘party’ ended and everyone dispersed to their own rooms, ready for a good night's rest.
Bo, Sera and Iris lay down on their bed with smiles on their faces. Training was over! The time to truly explore the Bridge was tomorrow when they left towards the trial.
It was hard to fall asleep due to the running thoughts and emotions in their head but eventually they all fell asleep.
***
Day 34.
“The trial isn't so much of a maze as the name suggests. As long as you continue heading further in you'll reach the end, it's the roadblocks in the way that make it maze-like.” The Keeper explained to them, giving them some last minute hints.
They stood at the gate leading into the sanctuary, fully geared up and ready. The Keeper stood in front of them with a stern face going over everything they had been over.
It took a solid ten minutes before the Keeper was satisfied and saw them off. Jorron and Keira were behind her and they also waved goodbye as they left the gate.
They were back in the foggy depths of the forest, following a familiar map they had tried to follow before. This time if anyone tries to rob them, they would be prepared to defend their property.
Bo and Sera had been out here many times during their training but it had been a while since Iris had left the safe confines of the sanctuary and was a little on edge like the first time they had entered.
The forest was mostly silent, only the occasional caw of a bird or squeak of an animal faintly found its way into their ears.
They were lucky they had a map, because without it they would be trying to find the entrance blindly and would probably end up opposite of where they needed to be. Even with the map, they sometimes had to pause and reorient themselves, making sure they were in the right place.
The map had marked down landmarks to make sure they were on the right path which infinitely helped them out.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Their pace was neither fast nor slow but it only took them the day to finally arrive at their destination without any large hiccups along the way.
A cliffside stood in front of them, the height was unknown due to the fog but resting inside the cliff at its base was a wooden door. The door had no markings or symbols, just a plain old wooden door.
This was one of the four doors into the Lost Maze that the Keeper had told them about. Their plan for now was to rest outside first, then in the morning they would proceed into the trial and hope for the best.
They set up their camp a little way off in case other people passed by, and went to bed once again but now they had to have a nigh watcher again.
The day was short and simple, but tomorrow would be a different story.
Day 35.
It was finally time.
Weapons at the ready, Sera opened the door and stepped into the trial, followed by Iris then Bo at the end.
What they didn't know was that a pair of glowing green eyes watched them enter the door with an angry glare. Once they entered the door and closed it behind them, the person watching them dashed away.
A cold stone floor meet their feet first. They checked both sides to find large hedges roughly 10 feet apart. The hedges were not normal hedges. Iris inspected them and found tiny thorns covering all of the leaves.
They had read that the thorns had some sort of highly dangerous poison, so trying to force your way through the hedges and onto another path was not the greatest idea for most. Bo on the other hand would have an easy time doing so thanks to his metal body.
They couldn't really see anything else as the fog here was just as bad as Lost Forest itself and didn't have any other choice but to walk forward down the path.
They took it slow, a little on edge because they've heard many things from the Keeper about the Lost Maze. The creatures here were more dangerous than those on the outside, and some of those creatures on the outside made Bo and Sera run away because it was too much for them to handle.
Then came their first roadblock, a fork in the road. Do they go right or left?
“What do we do?” Bo asked.
“Does it matter?” Sera said. “Keeper said as long as we continue we should be able to get to the end, it's just a matter of what challenges each path has.”
“That's true…” Iris whispered.
“Okay then let's go right!” “Lets go left!” Sera and Iris said at the same time.
“You can't go left, that's the obvious way to go!” Sera argued. “Right has to be the best way.”
“You just said it doesn't matter!” Iris countered.
“Well… I wanna go right!” Sera and Iris looked at Bo.
“You want me to choose!?” Bo pointed to himself and they nodded.
‘Shit…’
“Why don't we make it random?” Bo pulled at a bronze Lang. ”Heads or tails?”
“I guess this way is fair… Heads!” Sera declared and watched the coin Bo flipped in the air with intense focus.
It landed on his palm which he by culture standards was supposed to flip onto the back of his hand.
The coin showed heads.
“YES! Alrighty we're going right!” Sera celebrated by punching the air.
“It doesn't even matter which way we go, you know that right?” Iris said with a little pout.
“Says the sore loser!”
“I'm not a sore loser!”
Bo watched with a smile as his two friends bickered among themselves. That's just how friendship was, sweet half the time and bitter the other half— Not a bad bitter either.
They took a right at the fork in the road like Sera wanted and somberly creeped along the stone pathway.
“Wait hold up…” Sera said and put her finger to her mouth indicating to the others to be quiet.
Then they heard it. The sound of giggling was barely audible but it still gave them chills as the horrifying sound dug deep into their bones.
Focused and ready for anything, they surveyed their surroundings trying to find where the giggling came from but it was too hard to see anything in the fog.
The giggling got louder as the seconds went by, eventually it felt like it was right in their ear but they still couldn't see anything.
“Ouch! What the…” Sera cried out and looked down at her arm to see a tiny bite mark.
Another sharp pain radiated from Sera’s leg and she yelped once again. “Something is biting me!” She warned the others.
“Ow ow!” Then it was Iris’s turn to get bit. “I think I can see something moving in the fog, it's small but it's flying around us— Ow ow ow!”
Iris swatted at where the pain was felt and felt her hand hit something to the ground. She curiously leaned down and managed to pick up the creature that was biting them.
It was a small, pure white creature about the size of an average human palm. The creature had a pair of thin wings on its back but the main thing that drew their attention was its humanoid appearance.
“Oh shit, it's a fog sprite…” Iris cursed and dropped the fog sprite to the ground and ruthlessly stomped on it and killed it.
“What are fog sprites?” Bo asked after seeing Iris brutally kill the fog sprite.
“Oh, you really don't wanna know.” Iris shook her head but still explained what they were to him.
“Fog sprites are small carnivorous humanoids that hunt large creatures in massive swarms. Due to their color they blend in with the fog here, luckily they’ve only been found in the Lost Maze but most occurrences involving fog sprites end horribly. ”
“We need to leave quickly before another comes and finds its dead friend.” Iris grabbed Bo and Sera’s hand and took off down the pathway, heading deeper into the maze.
“Wait shouldn't we run back instead?” Sera asked as she was getting dragged along.
“Fog sprites can fly over the hedge walls and the pathway backwards is a straight line meaning they can easily trap us if they find us. We're better off trying to find shelter or more pathways to try and lose them.”
“Are they that dangerous?”
“Fog sprites hunt in swarms of hundreds, that singular one was painful enough no?” Iris explained and Sera nodded looking down at her arm and saw the bite mark still bleeding.
They ran forward hoping to escape the range of the fog sprites. They passed another fork in the road and didn't take their time to choose like before but instead just ran right.
The skidded to halt as they found themselves face to face with a large tree.
‘Were they back in the Lost Forest somehow?’ No, it must be one of the sections found in the maze.
Iris dragged them over to the tree and sat them down. She rummaged through her backpack and took out bandages and a vial of rubbing alcohol.
“We gotta clean the wounds and wrap them up, fog sprites can smell blood and the unique scent their saliva has.”
She poured some of the alcohol on her bite mark and winced through the pain before passing the vial to Sera. They took a few minutes to clean and wrap their wounds, in this time they also grabbed a quick bite to eat before they stood up ready to move on.
Then they heard the sound of giggling once again but there was another sound mixed in. It was a low sound, they felt its vibrations more so than hearing its sound.
Then Iris realized it was the sound of hundreds of wings flapping and her face paled.
“RUN!”