Fall of Autumn, Week 4, Day 3

[Skill: Silent as a Shadow]

[Level: 5]

[Training Style: Evasion]

[Task: Evade all Sentries and find the Star Gem in the Town.]

[Failure conditions:

* You are spotted, and the sentry has time to alert the main forces.

* You fail to find the Star Gem in 470 minutes.]

[Notice: Your Mana has been drained to fuel a perpetual instance of [Silent as a Shadow]. No ambient Mana will be provided during the training.]

I read the failure conditions before coming to a grim realization.

I really can’t be seen. I don’t have a weapon.

I also noticed the specific timeframe: 470 minutes. That’s just shy of eight hours.

Surely not all trials are that long? Theo had just left his —and it was barely 9 AM. He couldn’t have been in there all night, could he?

I tried to focus on the task in front of me, tried to push Theo out of my mind. It was time to work on [Silent as a Shadow].

I took a deep breath and righted myself. I pulsed my will and activated [Mental Fortitude]. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a mana skill, so it shouldn’t have mattered that my mana was drained for the training. But it didn’t take. I didn’t feel any different. Nothing had happened. It was just me and the grey buildings surrounding me. Just me and the muffled shuffling of feet.

Wait–

I whipped around, looking for a place to hide. The world around me was an imitation of a town. Surely there would be—yes, there were barrels pressed up against the wall. The low sound of boots scraping stone were coming closer, so I perched myself between two barrels. There was just enough of a gap for me to be able to see through, and so I waited.

Achingly slow, the Sentries made their appearance. They were small. As small as me, surprisingly. And they traveled in a pair. The Sentry’s skin was giving off a soft golden hue that broke through [Silent as a Shadow]’s dull grays and muted browns. Despite the golden skin, the things were ugly —with stubby legs, overly long hooked noses, and large pointed ears. Their faces had deep lines that held their own shadows, and their eyes were big-like. For lack of a better modifier, they looked like the Callistan goblins —not anything native to Maeve. The Sentries wore loose cloth outfits and thick leather shoes. One held a dagger, and the other a mace.

I wasn’t interested in being spotted by the things, so I tilted back away from the gap, waiting for the Sentries to pass. As they took their slow, shuffling steps, I began feeling through my bag, searching for anything I could use as a weapon. I had figured I would be working in a different capacity, so I had only brought Noir, a spool of thread, and some smaller swatches of fabric. Unfortunately, without access to my mana, I was unable to empower Noir or even summon a crochet hook. That left me with my thread. I slid it out and held it tightly. It was too strong to cut without a blade. There was no hope to snap some off with my teeth or pull it apart bare-handed.

I took a deep breath and watched as the Sentries disappeared around a corner.

I was in a makeshift town, which meant the star gem could be in any house within the borders —it could even be on one of the Sentries if Twilight was sadistic.

Gingerly, I stood up from where I was crouched and tapped my fingers on the barrel in thought. The quiet thrumming echoed in the alley, but it was dull enough that I wasn’t worried about attracting attention.

Wait, a thrum? I thought, looking down at the barrel. Does that mean it’s empty?

Sure enough, when I pried the top off the barrel, there wasn’t a thing inside. Well, not nothing.

At the bottom of the barrel was a sparkling gem in the shape of a crescent moon. I leaned into the barrel, gripping the gem.

“Oh,” I said aloud, “This at least makes it easier.”

Pulling myself out of the barrel, I slid the gem into my bag and checked the other barrel —this time, there was a heart gem at the base. I took that as well. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to take it out of Twilight, but it was worth a shot. Maybe the more I collected, the better Twilight would judge my performance, if that was even how it worked.

Taking a light step, I began my journey deeper into the imitation town. It was uncanny, the silence. But it was soothing, too, focusing. I unwound my thread as I walked away from the previous Sentries —wrapping the thread around my palms and leaving just enough space for it to be slack when I brought my hands less than two feet apart. The silence made it easy to once again hear the muffled shuffling of feet around a corner up ahead.

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This time, there were no barrels, just me and two walls. I pressed my body up against the wall, slowing my breathing and being as quiet as I could.

Only it wasn’t enough because the Sentry was rounding the corner, not going straight passed the opening.

I wondered, then, if I had it in me to attack the monstrous thing. I decided I did.

As the Sentry’s eyes met mine, I was already moving —the unspooled thread pulled taught between my hands. The goblin was alone this time, fortunate because there was one of me. I lunged for the Sentry’s neck, and the thing was too slow to stop me from wrapping my hands around the back of its throat and circling him with the threads. I pulled tight.

The beast couldn’t make a noise, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t move. It swung its sword out at me —but we were too close for it to be truly effective. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, though. The edge of the blade slid through the fine fabric of my shirt, cutting into my stomach. It wasn’t more than a flesh wound, but it still stung. And I was bleeding. Reflexively I brought my hands to by stomach, which pulled the Sentry's head down to my chest. I heard a growl and stepped back. The golden goblin came with me again, and I fought back a scream.

I was stuck in close combat with this thing and its blade.

I did the only thing I could think of —I brought up my knee and kicked the Sentry in the stomach with as much force as I could muster.

The goblin fell back. I heard a squirt-squish-squeem, and then there was liquid splattering my face as a thump hit the ground.

I didn’t dare open my mouth, lest the liquid enter it, so instead, I looked with wide eyes at the fallen body of the Sentry —and its decapitated head.

“Oh, that’s foul,” I whispered, horrified.

I could taste the sewage of the Sentry's blood enter my mouth and burn. Immediately, bile rose up in my throat, and I was unable to fight it as I emptied my stomach on the ground around me.

“That’s fouler,” I sighed when I was finally able to breathe again. The thread in my hands was taught as I was bent over, my hands on my knees. The thread was stained with black blood, and quickly unwound it from my hands.

I didn’t like how close that had required me to get —not to mention now my stomach was on fire from the cut.

I picked up the blade that the Sentry had dropped and took it as my own. I looked at the body one more time just as it disappeared in a puff of iridescent miasma, leaving behind a recognizable blue ball—a Mana Pearl. I grabbed it, sliding it into my bag as well.

So the Great Inbetween is more than it seems. I thought to myself. The monsters are real-ish.

I could feel the time pass as I continued my way deeper into the town. I was moving gingerly out of both caution and pain. But whether it was luck or fate, I did not encounter any more Sentries for nearly half an hour. As I passed barrels or crates, I pulled them open. I wound up collecting a square orange gemstone, a circular pink gemstone, another blue crescent moon, and two more red hearts.

As I walked, I alternated, turning left and right to ensure I wasn’t moving in circles.

It was as I was peeking around another corner that I heard it. The sound of shuffling. The telltale sign of a Sentry.

I dove backward, running for a barrel I’d just raided. It was in the nick of time that I slid behind the wooden thing, pressing myself up against the wall, willing myself to become one with the shadow.

I held my breath as the shuffling passed. I didn’t dare even open my eyes. I could hear not one, not two, but three sets of shuffling. That was too many to stop the failure condition. Two? Maybe, if I was lucky. Three? Impossible.

So I stilled myself, head to toe, pressed myself into the wall so solidly I was the shadow of the barrel. It was all I could do.

And after several agonizing seconds, the Sentries passed me by.

I gave it another dozen seconds before I took a deep breath, labored after holding it in for so long.

That was how hours passed. I was shocked that Twilight could create such a massive space, large enough to keep me searching for what felt like over four hours. I’d met another Sentry and had to struggle through a sword fight. It caused me to accumulate a bum knee and an injured wrist, but eventually, I’d got a solid piercing wound on the thing’s heart and gathered another Mana Pearl. I had no desire to grab another, though. I would rather get through this the way it was meant —by evading the Sentries, not fighting them. I couldn’t even take more than one, anyway.

I’d also gather two dozen more gems —no star gems, though. And the deeper I went into the town, the more Sentries I came across. Fortunately, at some point, piles of crates had started appearing as well as the barrels. Once the coast was clear, I would check those as well, but the crates were almost always actually empty. Except for once. Once, there had been a neon green apple-shaped gemstone. It was larger than the others and finely carved.

Shortly after that, I had to lie down behind a pile of crates. I’d shifted them to become something akin to a fort, to cover me from all angles. My pain was consuming me. Every step led to a bone-deep ache, and every swing of my dominant arm led me to wince. I needed a break. I closed my eyes, and between one moment and the next, I was out.

I dreamt of night and shadow and relaxing in the silence of the dark. I dreamt of power untold. Of becoming the God of Nora.

I dreamt of golden glows, golden goblins, and fighting for my life. I dreamt of mana pearls poisoning my mind and bringing me somewhere too bright to function.

I dreamt of gems—so many gems that I had no need to work. I lived a life all my own. A life of freedom away from the Dawns.

And then, I awoke to the dull grey town and the shuffling of feet. I awoke to a world pitted against me. I awoke to a deep green system notification filling my vision.

[Warning: There are only 60 minutes remaining in the training for [Silent as a Shadow]. Please find the Star gem within the allotted time.]