It’s the type of well that has a wooden cover over it, with a handle attached to a rotating wooden cylinder that raises and lowers a bucket on a rope. Well, I’m assuming a bucket is attached as the rope is hanging straight down into the well. The gray stones that make up the well are weatherworn and covered in moss. The cover has a few slats missing, contributing to the abandoned look.
I share a look with Triss, then we cautiously walk up to the well. At first glance, there’s no telltale glow anywhere I can see. I poke my head over the rim of the stone but there’s no light inside the shaft of the well either, the rope simply disappearing into a chasm of darkness.
I take a step backward. “I think the obvious move here is to raise the rope.”
Triss shrugs in response, busy staring at the stones of the well. I rest my bow against the side of the well and move towards the handle. I grip it with both hands, then begin rotating it counter-clockwise to wind up the rope. Although the well looks like it hasn’t been taken care of in years, the handle spins smoothly.
The rope rises, wrapping around the cylinder in neat coils. After what feels like a while of turning the shaft, the end of the rope finally appears, attached to the handle of a wooden bucket. Triss leans over and grabs the bucket, pulling it over to rest on the well’s stone.
She looks inside it, then lets out a disappointed sigh, “Just water.”
I release the handle and peer inside the bucket for myself, but there’s nothing special about the water filling the bottom half of the bucket.
Triss crouches down and begins running her hands along the stones of the well. “Go check the other side,” she directs, “Make sure none of the stones are loose or fake.”
I follow her lead, pushing and trying to wiggle each stone along the opposite section of the well, but they are all firmly in place.
“Nothing over here,” Triss calls out.
“Same,” I respond, standing back up and walking over to her.
We both stare at the well in silence for a few moments. “So…” I begin, “Is there anything you can do that can get us to the bottom of a well and back out again?”
“No,” Triss grinds out, sounding frustrated. I figured as much, considering what I’ve seen of her abilities, but had hoped she was hiding something that would be useful. What little I could see of the inside of the well shaft was slick with condensation, and I’m not going to overestimate myself by thinking I can climb something slippery in the dark. Although the rope looks sturdy, I don’t trust the worn wood not to snap if I put my weight on it.
Could I use my stored time to slow my fall? If I pushed out a big enough cloud, I could catch myself right before I hit the bottom… except I’ve only ever created a slow field large enough for my finger, and creating an area of sand dense enough for time to slow isn’t as simple as just throwing out a wave of mana. In the darkness at the bottom of the well, I wouldn’t know when I was about to hit, and if I did time it right I would still have no way of getting out. Plus, I don’t know if I could… step off the ledge, again.
I’ll table the idea of slowing myself out of a fall for now; I want to practice with it first so I don’t get it wrong when I need it.
“We should keep moving,” Triss says. She still sounds annoyed but is now also somewhat resigned. “If we start walking now, we might be able to find something else before we run out of time.”
I glance at the timer.
[00:00:19:07]
I nod, agreeing with her. It’s also not a given that there’s anything at the bottom of the well, either.
Triss cups her hands and dips them into the water in the bucket, pooling water in her hands before raising them to her lips and taking a sip. She sees me watching her and pauses.
“Might as well. The health potion fixed all the damage but I’m still parched as fuck,” she says, resuming her drinking.
My throat’s also a little dry, it’s been a few hours of walking and fighting since I last drank at the lake. What I could really go for right now is some pizza or something else to eat, but well water will have to do. I step up beside Triss and use my hands to drink from the bucket as well.
The water is cold and pleasantly refreshing. I take a long drink, then grab my bow and face away from the well.
We came from this side of the clearing, and Triss’s group likely came from the opposite side if they were passing the well on the way to the flower. I point to the right, where we would have gone if we had turned immediately when we reached the well.
“How about that way?” I ask.
Triss shrugs, which I guess means yes since she starts heading in that direction. I fall into step slightly behind her again.
I’m not looking forward to another awkwardly silent walk, but all the icebreakers I know feel too casual in this situation. It would be weird to ask “What grade are you in?”, right?
Before I can think of something better, however, Triss stops ahead of me, on the edge of a small clearing in the woods. I peer around her, trying to see what we’ve stumbled across so soon. We haven’t even been walking for a minute since-
In the center of the clearing is an old, rundown well.
The same exact well we just walked away from.
It’s identical down to which slats are missing on the well cover. The only thing different is that the first well had the bucket resting on the rim and this well’s bucket is on the ground next to it.
Triss opens her mouth and lets out a harsh, jagged shriek. I wince away from her in surprise, wondering how a human voice can make a sound like broken glass being scraped across metal. The noise is mercifully short, after which she shuts her mouth tightly before saying, “It’s real.”
“Maybe there’s a line of wells,” I add, although I know how unlikely that is even before I say it.
“Let’s retrace our steps,” Triss says, then begins to back up. I move with her, retreating into the forest until the trees block the well from view. I turn around and walk forward for a few seconds until we arrive back at the original clearing with the original well.
Except, the bucket isn’t on the rim where we left it, nor is it right next to the stone base like on the well we just saw.
It’s closer.
Roughly five feet away from the well, the rope attached to its handle strung out like a washing line, the bucket is sitting innocuously in the open.
Well, fuck.
Triss’s face has gone pale, her eyes also locked on the bucket. She reaches down and grabs my arm, then marches us over to where we first arrived from the flower’s enclosure. “We’re getting out of here,” she declares, then begins singing. It's the same song she sang against the flower, full of wordless noises that somehow evoke thoughts of sunshine and peace. The calming notes wash over me, draining away my rising tension. We walk into the woods again.
A few moments later, we emerge into a clearing. Triss’s singing cuts off with a strangled noise.
The well looms in front of us.
The bucket has closed the distance even further, almost ten feet from the well now. The clearing is pretty small, it’s actually closer to us than it is to the well at this point.
Without the soothing effects of Triss's song, the fear settles into me. It’s not like facing a snarling animal or a violent person where the danger is obvious. We’re trapped here, through means I don’t understand, and yet all that seems to be happening is a bucket that I drank out of not five minutes ago is getting closer to me.
What’s going to happen when it reaches us?
The unsettling nature of it all is made even stronger due to the unknown elements.
“It’s not making us turn around unconsciously. If we run, we might be able to go fast enough to escape,” Triss proposes.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
I half-turn to look at her, keeping one eye on the bucket. “Every time we leave and re-enter the clearing, it gets closer. Based on how far it's been moving, it will reach us next time, and we don’t even know what it is that we need to move fast enough to avoid.”
“So what’s your plan?” she whirls on me. “Do you want us to just sit here?”
That’s… not a terrible idea. I check the timer.
[00:00:12:42]
“The first challenge is almost over. We spent, what, ten minutes poking around the well earlier, and we were fine. It only moves when we try to leave, so let’s just wait out the timer,” I suggest.
“You’re assuming we’ll be teleported again. It called this the SAD arena, not the first challenge arena,” Triss counters. She’s right, damn it.
I stare at the bucket’s silent threat while I try to think. Triss and her group walked by earlier, so the trap isn’t triggered for everyone.
“Triss,” I call to the panicking girl, “Did anyone in your old group drink from the well?”
“What? No, I told you, they thought it was too dangerous, or that’s what the flower made them say. We walked along the edges of the clearing, but no one approached the well.”
So it’s either drinking or proximity to the well.
But how is it happening? Triss removed the possibility of it being some kind of mental effect that makes us keep turning around. The bucket moving implies, what, agency on the well’s part?
Basically, either the well’s alive, or there’s a third actor we haven’t seen yet.
I think back to the description of abstract affinities. They mentioned there was power in the collective perception that everyone has of something. Isn’t there a lot of folklore about spirits living in wells? And about wells serving as portals?
That would make sense with what we’ve experienced. If the well - or something inside it - has some kind of teleportation magic, then either we’ve been getting physically moved or it’s been leapfrogging us, moving ahead of us every time our back is turned.
How do you appease a well spirit?
The historical method is probably to toss a coin in, but… I don’t have any.
“Do you have any coins? Like, real money, not Obols?” I ask.
“No. Why?” Triss responds, sounding both confused and still scared.
“I think we may have to, um, calm a spirit? I mean, we drank water from the well and didn’t leave anything in return,” I stumble my way through my reasoning, but without walking her through my train of assumptions it’s hard to explain.
I have other things I can toss in, even if they aren’t coins. Maybe any kind of offering will suffice, even if it’s not money. I take out the first thing I found in this world, the fox’s claw. It’s [Common], and kind of dull now, but it has killed a person so I’m hoping that adds some kind of spiritual value to it.
If the well is actually an unthinking monster who sucks people’s souls out through a bucket, then a fox’s claw won’t do me any good anyways.
Ignoring Triss’s bewildered stare, I take aim and lob the claw into the bucket.
The bucket rattles, spinning slightly, before tipping over and landing on its side. From out of its mouth an emerald coin comes rolling out toward us.
I smile at the unexpected bonus, the tension fleeing my body. Looks like well spirits do appreciate murder weapons. I reach out and pick up the coin. It has a shine to it, softly reflecting the moonlight along its edge, with a raised infinity symbol on both sides.
[Obol] [Common]: A reward for those who can do more than bash their heads against their enemies. SAD raises all boats.
* Can be consumed for [1] unassigned stat points
* Cannot be used to raise stats above a certain limit
* Will expire at the end of the SAD process
I was right. [Common] Obols exist. Now, the question is who gets it. If we want to at least keep the semblance of sharing loot equally, then it’s Triss’s turn, but she didn’t do anything to help get it. Well, she did lead me here, and I should probably work on cultivating good relationships considering we might not be separating.
I turn toward Triss so that I can offer her the Obol, but she’s not even looking at me. She’s staring off to the side, at the forest. I scan the trees, at first worried something has crept up on us, but I don’t see anything. She mutters something under her breath.
“What was that?” I ask.
Triss startles and looks back at me. Her face, having been pale for the past few minutes, flushes red. “Oh, I was- I thought the… don’t you think it’s like a wishing well?” she finishes clumsily.
I blink at her a few times. Barring when she was crying her eyes out, she normally sounds pretty self-assured; I thought the tripping over words was my bit.
“Ah… considering that it’s giving coins out, more like the opposite of a wishing well? I’ve also never heard of a wishing well trapping people around it until they give it coins…” I respond.
“Listen, you put in a claw and got out a coin. So what happens if you put in a coin?” Triss asks while grabbing the bucket off the ground and heading towards the well, showing none of the previous fear she had. I would have figured she’d be the most excited to leave, considering how panicked she was.
I stand up and follow her reluctantly, not wanting to get too close to the well despite probably being on good terms with it. “I think the law of equivalent exchange states that a claw would come out.”
You have [00:00:05:00] left until the end of your first SAD challenge. System records show you have already completed your [Thrive] objective. All you have to do is [Survive] for the next [5] minutes! Aren’t you excited about what comes next?
Triss waves her hand in the air, dismissing both the System message and what I’m saying. She drops the bucket back into the well. By the time the slack rope becomes taut, it’s well out of sight. “Trust me on this. It’s obvious to me, like how the well spirit thing was obvious to you,” she holds her hand out for the Obol.
I was running on conjecture earlier, not nearly as certain as Triss is making me out to be. Well, I wanted to give her the Obol anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter to me if she throws it back down the well.
I hand over the green Obol to her. She unceremoniously tosses it into the well, the speck of green vanishing into the darkness. The seconds tick by, with no sound of it splashing into the water.
We stand there quietly for almost a minute while nothing happens. “I’m going to raise the bucket,” Triss states, then begins to turn the handle on the cylinder of the well. She cranks the handle, slowly winding up the bucket.
Eventually, the bucket appears over the rim of the well. I grab it for her this time and check inside it. It’s empty, there’s not even any water in it. I hold the bucket out for her to see as well and say, “It was worth a try.”
Triss frowns, although she looks more confused than disappointed. Did she believe that strongly she was going to get something from the well?
I release the bucket and take a few steps backward, looking at the timer.
[00:00:02:38]
Almost out of time. “Triss,” I begin, not sure what I want to say. I feel like I have to say something though, on the chance that we never see each other again. She moves away from the well and comes to stand next to me, studying me curiously.
“It’s been… fun. I hope you do well, you know, in the rest of SAD,” I force myself to speak, even as the climbing awkwardness makes my chest burn. She’s kind of headstrong, has mood swings faster than a light switch, and is definitely hiding some things from me, but we did save each other’s lives.
Triss runs a hand through her messed-up hair. “You too, Kira. Honestly, I hope we don’t get teleported away. You seem like you know what you’re doing, and I’d rather be with someone who can watch my back than be alone again,” she says while offering me a tentative smile.
I stare blankly at her. Is she seriously saying that she thinks I’ve been competent? No, this is some sort of hero worship or some shit. She saw me holding her guts in and has built up an image of me in her mind which I’ll no doubt destroy as soon as I almost get myself killed again. A faint feeling of nausea rises in me at the idea. I should set her straight now. What’s the easiest way to tear myself down-
Something wet touches me on the back of my neck.
I spin around, simultaneously reaching for my inner store of time and bringing up my bow - but there’s nothing there. I tense, eyes darting across the trees, and reach a hand to my neck. My skin there is damp, but my hair is dry. I risk a glance to my side at Triss.
She’s in a similar position as me, except she’s fully drawn her blade.
“Did you see anything?” I ask. She shakes her head, then pauses. Triss lowers her dagger and crouches down, grabbing something off the ground. She raises it and I can see it’s a green Obol.
I look down at my own feet. Nestled amongst the grass is another Obol. I stoop down and pick it up, then turn back to the well-
It’s gone.
I stare at the now empty clearing, with a notable absence of both wells and buckets. There’s no trace of anything ever being here, not even a disruption in the growth of the grass where the well was.
Fucking teleporting wells.
*DING*
Objective [Survive] complete! As a reward, you’re alive. How much fun is that?
Objective [Thrive] complete! The System knew you could do it!
Congratulations! You have completed your first SAD challenge! By completing this [survival] challenge, you have demonstrated your ability to adapt to your new circumstances. There is no place for those that can’t adapt in the Integrated Worlds!
[publishing results…]