The first day, especially without any more instruction, was filled with an odd tension. No one dared do anything, and everyone knew they were constantly being watched. Everyone was waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Waiting for some kind of sign or instructions. As time continued to tick past, Ruena was done with the endless waiting.

“We can’t afford to waste any time,” she told them, “Whenever we have spare time, we should focus on uncovering that secret.”

“Should I help?” Soral asked. Actually, had he even told everyone he could hear thoughts? He was fairly certain he had told Ruena. It was hard to tell from the look Ruena gave him, and he didn’t want to listen in on her thoughts without permission.

“Maybe later,” she told him, “For now we should show the skills of our head of espionage.”

Jazz preened as all attention turned to him. Whether he was technically a cat or not, he certainly acted like one. After a few moments of basking in the attention, Jazz stood, stretched, and sauntered out the doorway.

“Does he even know what to look for?” Ember questioned.

“No, but I don’t either,” Soral admitted, “I am sure he will find something.”

“We shouldn’t waste our time either,” Ruena prompted, “Let’s see what resources this little testing ground has to offer.”

After that, she assembled some teams to split up and scour the grounds. There would be three, for communication purposes. One had Flame, another Ember, and the last had Soral. Soral wasn’t sure what to think about being assigned for communication. His team consisted of Dillon and Liza. Ruena was with Ember and Janon. Flame was with Rosalie.

Liza seemed particularly pleased by the groupings. “We finally get to spend time with you,” she announced, grabbing Soral’s arm, “You know you are like our long lost brother.”

“A brother? Really?” Soral asked. He hadn’t even lived with them for that long. He would have thought he was an old friend at best.

“Of course you are,” Dillon confirmed with a smile, “You gave us this chance to see the world. What better way is there to reunite?”

Is that really what they thought? In that case, he had an idea. “Then how about we try to beat the others and find more resources?”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Yes!” Liza agreed immediately, “We’ll find everything we could ever need!”

==========

Jazz had gone out on his own with a purpose to discover the mysterious secret hidden within the test. The problem was, he wasn’t sure what sort of secret counted. Since he had left, Jazz was certain he had discovered several secrets. For instance, one of the teams was going to try to cheat by targeting him somehow. He wasn’t very concerned. Not after learning all of those tricks from the catlike assassin.

Among the other things he had discovered was that there were more supplies than just food and basic tools hidden throughout the map. The mercenary judges had been talking about some kind of secret weapon no team had ever found before, hidden near the outer wall. That sounded like a big secret that might be worth those points.

The outer wall was far more vast than Jazz had expected. He had only made it halfway around the edge before he ran across that certain team. They were far more surprised to see Jazz than he was to see them.

“Captain! It’s that cat!” one of them hissed.

“I knew he would be wandering about,” the supposed captain said with a confident smile, “He can’t gather information hiding inside that absurd base of theirs.”

So they did know he was in charge of gathering information. Then why were they speaking so freely in front of him. Did they think he could not understand him?

One of the team members approached Jazz with a frown. “He’s bigger than I thought, and the wall is pretty tall. Will it work?”

“Cats love high places,” the captain replied, staring Jazz down, “He might even help by climbing on his own.”

That certainly wasn’t going to happen. They might notice the door in the wall hidden behind that tree a ways back, though. Before they did, Jazz would have to somehow dissuade them. He couldn’t summon his isopod friend in case they accused him of bringing in outside help. Whatever he used had to already be inside the walls. What should he… Was that fish?

As a proud kitica in the shape of a cat, Jazz was not tempted by simple things. However, fish was a rare treat Soral rarely got for him and these fools were casually just waving some around. So wasteful!

“Look, he wants it,” the one holding the fish laughed.

Should he take his mocking hand off? No, that was probably a crime. Couldn’t commit any crimes. But he could leave a few scratches in just the right places that would make things look like an innocent kitty defending itself. Conveniently, the sun was starting to set, so his white fur would draw more attention than some shallow scratch wounds.

The foolish human waved the fish closer to Jazz, making sure he got a good whiff of it, before throwing it over the wall. That was just rude, but Jazz had already lost interest in the fish. It smelled of salt and rot. It didn’t compare to the delicacies Soral had given him. How sad did these fools think his palate was?

“He isn’t moving? Did it not work?”

“Cats are fickle,” the captain sighed, “We are going to have to throw him after all.”

They were going to do what?! Jazz darted past the many hands reaching for him and scaled a nearby tree. As a small form of revenge he made their hands get stuck in muddy earth instead of swiping through air.

“Ack!”

“My hands are stuck!”

The result was a goopy muddy bump between them, trapping all of their hands in its mucky prison. It was what they deserved! The one member of the team that had not gotten stuck was already trying to dig the others out before the muck dried. Jazz spent some time on his branch watching the futile efforts before he heard some familiar voices.

“-told you not to pick those up,” Liza complained.

“They’re tasty,” Soral defended.

There was a sigh from Dillon. “Soral, those are poisonous.”

No longer interested in the obnoxious team’s predicament, Jazz dropped down to meet them. He could tell Soral all about the secret weapon near the outer wall and all of the other secrets he had learned along the way.