Summer of 343, A.D.
“Neil, please tell me today isn’t another practical class.” After the snakes and Damocles’ sword exercises, Kai dreaded Neil being the firekeeper again. It had been a while since Neil last taught a purely theoretical class, and Kai hoped today would be his lucky day.
“Relax, Kai. It isn’t.”
Kai sighed in relief.
“The set-up for the next practical class has been surprisingly difficult to arrange. I’ve got to say that I outdid myself this time. The next class will be amazing, Kai. You’re going to love it.”
Kai’s shoulders sank. For Neil to say this meant that he was cooking up the stuff of nightmares. What could be worse than snakes and swords? Neil faced everyone around the fire and ignored Kai’s frightened look.
“Today, we’ll discuss Gestalt Theory.”
Kai stared at Neil, surprised. It was not like Neil to dabble in psychology. That was more Trudy’s department.
Neil continued, “One of the keys to success in any survival or endurance-related trials is to use every tool at your disposal. Often, you won’t have everything you need and will be required to make do with what you have. Who can remind the bonfire of what the Gestalt Theory is? Alexander.”
“It has to do with how our brain interprets information. When I look at a car, I see the whole. I don’t see the wheels, the engine, or individual components.”
“Very good. Our brains are hardwired to identify the whole, but that can cause us to miss valuable opportunities in survival-related exams. Looking at the whole isn’t always the best approach. You have to be able to shift gears in your brain and look at the parts. For example… what is this?”
Neil pointed toward a pot with a small tree in it. Kai had noticed it earlier and wondered if Neil would use it to fuel the fire. On his way to the bonfire today, he had taken it from some random home. The plant’s leaves were shaped like swords, and its trunk was almost as tall as Neil. Not surprisingly, the person who answered this time was Clara.
“Asparagaceae agavoideae.”
Neil stared her down. Clara used every chance she got to try imposing her love of the Latin nomenclature on creatures.
“Fine. A yucca.”
“Good. That’s the whole. But look at the parts now.” Kai tried to follow Neil’s train of thought. “The leaves are good crafting tools. You can make shoes with them or baskets, for example. You can also make soap from the roots and detergent from the stems. If you’re hungry, the flowers and seeds are edible, and the fibers are great tinder. As you can see, the whole isn’t better than the parts.”
Sunny, next to Kai, moved uncomfortably.
“Not surprisingly, the engineer disagrees with my jab at the Gestalt theory.” He said slyly.
Sunny’s face reddened. Kai was surprised to see the old engineer look so upset. She wasn’t easily provoked.
“Settle down, Sunny. You’ll have your chance to prove me wrong today. Everyone can disperse. Remember, being stuck on the whole can mean life or death in a survival trial. Think about examples of this today and bring them back tonight. We’ll share our conclusions at the sunset bonfire.”
*
Present, 353rd Daisy exams.
Capture successful!
Tries left: 13 of 20.
Lichen (Common)
5 of 5
Hp: 0
Vp: 3
Kai gasped. That had been close. He’d gotten the very last [Lichen] card. His opponents were also coming to the same conclusions as he was. He frowned as he looked at the hp of the card. What did it mean that the card had zero hit points? That couldn’t be good, right? Logically, if something had zero hp, it was dead. He didn’t know if he should be worried about it, but at least the victory points in this card were very generous.
He wasn’t an ace in Math like Alex or Sunny had been, but it was interesting that with common cards, the sum of hp and vp wasn’t greater than three so far. Interesting. He wondered if that was a rule in the game.
Finding nothing else on the trunk of the trees that was noteworthy, Kai tried walking over to the next one. The trees were spaced at intervals of a few steps, and it took next to nothing to get to the next tree. He walked around the tree in circles and found no lichen but found more moss than in the previous tree. He tried looking for insects but couldn’t find them. Now that he thought about it, he closed his eyes and tried to hear sounds around him. There was only the wind and nothing else. No birds singing, no insects buzzing. Was he truly alone out here?
He tried looking to the ground, seeing if he could find any insects, but found something else. Discreetly hidden among a bed of pine needles, a bed of mushrooms had sprouted under the protection of the tree roots. The mushrooms had white stalks and red caps with white dots on them. They were pretty and delicate. It almost felt like someone had grabbed a brush and meticulously painted the white dots on the caps.
He recognized this mushroom from his biology classes. It was poisonous, if he wasn’t mistaken. However, he couldn’t remember the species’ name. He’d never been good at remembering names. Ariel was much better at it than he was. He kneeled on the ground to get closer and took a photo.
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Capture successful!
Tries left: 12 of 20.
Fly Agaric (Uncommon)
1 of 4
Hp: 1
Vp: 3
Seeing that he’d gotten the first card, he quickly took a second one before others could beat him to the punch.
Capture successful!
Tries left: 11 of 20.
Fly Agaric (Uncommon)
2 of 4
Hp: 1
Vp: 3
[Fly Agaric]- that’s what the mushroom was called. When he heard the name, more information came to his mind. This mushroom could be used to prepare a fly trap, which could be helpful in survival challenges with disease-carrying mosquitoes. However, it was extremely poisonous and, if consumed, could cause powerful hallucinations or even death.
Looking at the stats in his two new cards, Kai smiled at the realization that he had just gotten his first uncommon card in this challenge. For them to be considered uncommon must mean they weren’t so easily found in the arena. There were undoubtedly fewer ones up for grabs. He covered his mouth as he looked at his [Lichen] card. He would have failed his capture if [Lichen] had been an uncommon card. He had only been successful because it was a common card, and there was a pool of five cards to draw from. The rarer something was, the greater the chances of it being taken already.
Thinking about this, Kai jolted upright and sprinted to the following few trees. He found moss and lichen on each of them but no other mushroom bed similar to this one. That confirmed his suspicions. Things that could be photographed and converted to uncommon cards weren’t easy to find in the snap arena.
He took off running, dashing from one tree to the next. There had to be other types of mushrooms out there. The [Fly Agaric] card’s name was incredibly specific, even more so than the [Pine Tree] card. That must mean other uncommon mushrooms were waiting to be found in the arena.
As he kept studying the floor around each of the trees, he felt a greater sense of urgency and the pressure of the deadline. Checking the time, Kai noticed he had an hour and a half before the challenge ended. The biggest challenge so far wasn’t making sense of the trial’s rules but all the mind games that came with it.
On the one hand, logic would have it that he could take some time exploring and looking for rarer things to capture. Rarer things were probably worth more points and were worth waiting for. On the other hand, the more he delayed, the higher the chances his opponents would pick up on the game and start hoarding all the good cards. Whatever the case was, he couldn’t find anything else to capture. He checked his inventory.
[Pine Tree]
2x[Moss]
[Lichen]
2x[Fly Agaric]
He patiently searched tree after tree. After several tries, he finally found what he was looking for. This time, the mushrooms he found weren’t hidden in the shade of the roots but growing off the pine tree’s trunk. They looked like little dark-red balconies and gave the impression that someone had started building a staircase up the tree.
He got his camera out and pointed it at the cluster of mushrooms.
Capture successful!
Tries left: 10 of 20.
Bear Bread (Uncommon)
3 of 4
Hp: 2
Vp: 2
He wasn’t the first to get to this mushroom this time. One of the other trial runners had already found it and taken two pictures. His fears were proven true. Everyone was catching up. No, he was already lagging behind. He decisively took another shot before anyone else beat him to it.
Capture successful!
Tries left: 9 of 20.
Bear Bread (Uncommon)
4 of 4
Hp: 2
Vp: 2
Chances were that someone else was already chasing mushrooms, just like he was. If it was just one trial runner, then it was fine. There were enough cards for both of them to grab. But things would become more complicated if a third one joined the fray.
Whenever he photographed something, he had to try imagining if it was something obvious enough that his opponents would have captured already. If so, he would do better to skip it. But what if his opponents had thought that and skipped it, too? Then, he would be missing out on a perfect chance. Argh! The mind games!
He kept investigating the woodland. He soon found another tree with bear bread and grimaced at the realization that mushrooms weren’t all that rare in the woods. His fears worsened when he saw another bed of fly agaric. After several never-ending minutes, he finally came across a new type of mushroom.
It was bright yellow and looked like a cabbage. It had overlapping fan-shaped clusters and grew off the tree trunk. Its size was impressive- it was easily the biggest mushroom he’d found so far. The color was very bright, which scared him. It made it easy for others to spot it from afar.
Should he risk it? He looked at the clock. There was little over an hour left to go. What were the chances that no one had seen this mushroom yet? After all, it was pretty obvious if you looked at the tree from the right angle. Had he been teleported here at the start of the trial, he would have taken a photograph of it immediately. He scratched his head and, coming to a decision, pointed the camera at it.
Capture failed!
Tries left: 8 of 20.
He passed his hand through his hair. He should have trusted his instinct! He shouldn’t have tried. Chances had been against him. He tried punching a nearby tree but missed, as his fist went right through it, making him angrier. He only had eight chances left and a dwindling supply of things to photograph.
He checked the time and pressed his lips into a thin line. The challenge was getting more complex by the minute. After an hour of running through the woodland, he had expected to run into a boulder, a river, or a different species of tree, but there were only pine trees as far as the eye could see. He was running out of ideas for things to capture. For a couple of precious minutes, he just stood there, thinking.
Eventually, Kai decided the worst thing to do would be to stand still, and he chose to think while walking instead. He walked past tree after tree, always attentive for anything that stood out or was out of the ordinary. The problem was, would he photograph it now if he did see it? It wasn’t necessarily good to run into something too eye-catching, was it? Chances were that it was taken already.
Another fifteen minutes passed. He saw nothing else worth capturing. What should he do? He paused and rubbed his hands on the front of his pants, thinking. Maybe he was looking at this the wrong way. What if instead of focusing on what stood out, he focused on what went unnoticed by others? What was there out here that others could easily miss?
His shoes stepped over the pine needles, making his steps crunchy. He stopped and looked at the floor.
Why were his feet reacting to the ground? That didn’t make sense. His hands went right through the tree. Shouldn’t his shoes have gone through the pine needles, too? He bent over to try to pick a pine needle, but, like before, his hands went right through it. He tried kicking a nearby tree, but his foot went right through it, too. Why did his feet crunch the pine needles but not make contact with the trees themselves?
He had just discovered something that had to have some significance, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He could see why his feet didn’t go through the floor like his hands had gone through the tree. After all, if that happened, he would just sink deeper and deeper into the ground. The thought of falling forever caused a shiver to run down his spine.
He set the discovery aside for later reflection and looked at the floor. These pine needles. It may be worth taking a picture of them. He pointed the camera at the ground.
Congratulations! Capture successful.
Tries left: 7 of 20.
Dry Pine Needle (Common)
5 of 5
Hp: 3
Vp: 0
He had gotten the very last one. He paused. The fact that this card read ‘dry pine needle’ made him look up at the still verdant needles atop the pine trees. Maybe he was fixated on the whole and was missing an opportunity right under his nose.