Wraithwood Botanist

B2 - R: Chapter 6 - Railain Vestra

Forcing myself to watch the Trial of Survival was a serious undertaking. Only two people had successfully doubled back and one of them chickened out (got smart, as I liked to call it) right at the start. The other dozen people that flew got eaten by birds, smothered by the poison, and fell into trap plants in the forest that snapped like Venus flytraps.

One dipped into the forest first thing and did far better than the rest. He dove to the ground, showing the path that led from the other side of Galfer’s Gate. Then he flew low, weaving in and out of defined paths—avoiding trap plants that always activated a moment too late.

This’s probably mapped out from the harvest, I had thought when I saw it. There were probably tens of thousands of years of individuals coming into the forest and mapping it out, and this showcase was proof.

The rider ducked and weaved between plants, went around shooting vines, released an ice spell at a nest of bugs, avoided the brivelts, increasing in altitude to get around a monster den, then dipping down as low as possible when spider-like creatures in trees shot down from canopies. For a moment, I thought that he had a serious chance—

—then he made it out into a field of dragons who were alerted and ready. They shot at him with speed that would require a playback mode to see clearly. The rider weaved around trees and threw spells, and tried to run, but he was overwhelmed in seconds.

Suddenly, the camera shook from some violent ultrasonic attack, and the head of the golden bird he was riding suddenly exploded, and they both crashed into the ground.

The Bramble was brutal—

—and if I even wanted to challenge it, I needed to make it through the dragon’s nest first.

"I can’t take this..." I tried to swipe the feed aside for a while, but that’s when a series of strange occurrences started to spiral out of control.

It began when the dragon rider, from the start of the ceremony, decided she had studied enough and was ready to challenge the trial. That got me interested—considering that she was likely the person bringing me my stuff. So I watched her fly to the podium, where someone was packing their mount with mock gear. Instead of waiting, the person preparing suddenly stopped and unloaded and flew away.

No one complained.

According to the announcer, her name was Railain Vestra, the First Domain Scion of a Beast Taming family—and also a mage.

The reaction toward her was strange. Those who were forced to fly sighed deep breaths of relief, shoulders relaxing as they gave thanks to the sky. Those who were there for ambition looked at the ground, trembling indignantly as if the matter was already settled.

Looks like this’s it, I thought.

Yet before she even loaded up her crates the cheering and excitement turned to chaos, pandemonium breaking down. Two camera angles suddenly flashed to the skies, where a massive dragon, far larger than the woman’s, flew toward the sight. Its movements were choppy and broken, and its wings looked broken and weak, skeletal even.

"And he’s done it!" the announcer boomed with a big smile. "Those in the know know that there was someone with a quest to tame a cursed one, and it looks like he did it! The strongest of the lot—a vraxle. The same thing killing all the best competitors thus far!"

A camera switched to the man’s face as he rode the dragon’s neck with the help of a specialized mount. He looked uncomfortable and unbalanced, strapped onto the beast like a physical object, but his eyes were determined as if he had taken a boatload of Adderall before a college exam.

What the hell’s going on?

The vraxle successfully navigated to the waiting site, where sharply dressed workers brought the wheezing, wincing, broken dragon different elixirs. There were close-ups of people creating water spheres and mixing in red and blue and green liquids, blending them on, and shooting them at the skeletal wings.

Another camera showed the original dragon’s rider arguing with staff, while another angle showed her parents arguing with sharply dressed "family" members at the front. There was a full-blown conflict brewing in real-time.

"Forgive us for the delay," the announcer said. "There’s a disagreement about who should go first. Railain was there first, but the Claustra are arguing that Aiden should go first because he was the only person who got a separate quest to tame a cursed avian and complete this Domain Quest."

A shot of the families saw many furious, turning to the massive dragon in the distance—feeling that they had been cheated. It would get nasty.

It isn’t something that I can explain. Seeing Aiden there felt... wrong. He didn’t look like he wanted to be there. His facial expressions weren’t hardened, and his body wasn’t bulky, and he didn’t hold himself well. Even furious and drugged up—which was painfully obvious—he couldn’t make eye contact with people and gave what appeared to be short answers.

The vraxle was even worse. This quest allowed beasts to fight for their freedom, but this one seemed annoyed rather than vengeful. It didn’t sneer at people. It simply accepted the healing on its wings as fact and looked at the gate.

This team wasn’t there because they wanted to be there—they were there because they had a reason to be there—something to strive for.

My heart rattled when Railain returned to a cheering crowd, pumping her fists as her family smirked and looked at other wealthy people snidely, and dismounted, allowing the vraxle to take the podium.

It was huge—a Boeing 747 cargo plane of a beast. Its wingspan was far larger than most dragons, and for the first time, it was clear to most that it was bigger than the other dragons in the Bramble.

It was a king.

I echoed the thoughts of so many people the camera caught speaking:

What the hell’d that guy need to do to tame that thing...?

It didn’t make sense, but I had plenty of time to ponder it. It took large ladders and flying beasts to get onto the massive creature, and it became a logistical nightmare to figure out how to strap the cargo to its back. The only way they found was to paint arrays that glued down the cargo on its back, and the vraxle looked like he was second away from sacrificing it all to eat everyone in the area. But it happened. An hour later, they had mock equipment on the dragon’s back and it stood, staring at the gate, a complex expression on its face.

Aiden looked scared yet determined, sending a final glance at the families defiantly on camera before turning to the gate. It was time to move.

Aiden had put magical and mental interference plugs into his ears, cutting off all noise but the grating sound of his circulation system, chugging like a steam train fueled by his pounding heart. Even though he couldn’t hear the crowd, he could feel their screams—the reverberations rattling his skeletal frame. It was intense—but not nearly as much as his situation.

Aiden had never ridden a horse for long distances, let alone raced one. Now, he was competing in a match where the competitors weaved through obstacle courses like Olympic competitors. It seemed absurd—if he wasn’t drugged, he would have thought twice. Yet he didn’t. Now, he was going off to his death.

I can hear your thoughts, Halten chuffed, shaking his body. Have some faith. If I couldn’t do this much, I would have killed myself rather than face the shame.

Okay... but... your wings.

Halten snorted. Tamed two cursed beasts and still knows nothing of curses... just sit there. I’ll take care of the rest.

Aiden nodded and waited, becoming in tune with his pulse, embracing shallow breaths—feeling his mind losing focus from oxygen deprivation. Then they gave the announcement.

He couldn’t hear it, but he could feel the crowd cheering. Then his body shook as Halten rocketed to the sky, giving him so much gravitational pressure that he thought he was in a rocket ship.

It was so intense he thought that he had the fastest mount there—unaware that he was one of the slowest and the many were jeering or laughing or lamenting their bets. He also didn’t know the wobbles he was feeling were from Halten’s broken wings, which hadn’t flown for a century. He didn’t know many things, but he learned what everyone else did once Halten flew over the wall—

—curses were a big fucking deal. Because the moment they crossed through this suffocating membrane that left Aiden’s limbs tingling like electricity passing through them, Halten exploded with so much magical energy and soul force that Aiden blacked out. When he came too, he could barely breathe, and his body was experiencing intense waves of dysphoria like his nervous system had been unlodged from his mind.

He opened his eyes slowly and found Halten hovering in the sky above the forest.

Close your eyes, Halten said.

Aiden did, but not before he saw a swarm of multicolored birds blot out the skies around them.